Combined Optimal Design and Control With Application to an Electric DC Motor

Abstract

In the design and optimization of artifacts requiring both mechanical and control design, the process is typically divided and performed in separate steps. The physical structure is designed first, a control strategy is selected, and the actual controller is then designed. This article examines how this separation could affect the overall system design and how the combination of the separate problems into a single decision model could improve the overall design, using an electric DC motor as a case study. The combination is challenging since the two problems often have different design criteria, decision objectives, and mathematical model properties. Furthermore, the two problems are often fully coupled in that the physical structure depends on the controller and the controller depends on the physical structure. A Pareto analysis is suggested as a rigorous way to compare a variety of design scenaria.