Structure Preserving Uncertainty Modelling and Robustness Analysis for Spatially Distributed Dissipative Dynamical Systems

The paper deals with uncertainty modelling, robust stability and performance analysis of multi-input multi-output (MIMO) reduced order spatially distributed dissipative dynamical systems. While researching the topic of modern robust control of such systems, two key findings were discovered: (i) systematic modelling of the uncertainty and model order reduction (MOR) at the level of a subsystem gives both modelling freedom and the ability for obtaining less conservative uncertainties on the level of a subsystem; (ii) for a special class of interconnected dissipative dynamical systems, uncertainty conservatism at the subsystem level can be reduced—a novel, structure preserving algorithm employing subsystem partitioning and subsystem MOR by means of balanced truncation method (BTM) is used to obtain low-order robustly stable interconnected systems. Such systems are suitable for practical decentralized and distributed robust controller synthesis. Built upon a powerful framework of integral quadratic constraints (IQCs), this approach gives uncertainty modelling flexibility to perform robustness analysis of real world interconnected systems that are usually affected by multiple types of uncertainties at once. The proposed uncertainty modelling procedure and its practical application are presented on the numerical example. A spatially discretized vibration dynamical system comprised of a series of simply supported Euler beams mutually interconnected by springs and dampers is examined. Spatial discretization of the mathematical model is carried out using the finite element method (FEM).