Sistemas de levitação eletromagnética são de interesse quando se necessita de tecnologia envolvendo redução de atrito, atuação sem contato físico, máquinas rotativas e trens de alta velocidade. Devido à presença de não linearidades em sua dinâmica, pesquisadores têm dado atenção ao desenvolvimento de controladores mais sofisticados, com o objetivo de melhorar o desempenho desses sistemas. Controladores lineares apresentam limitações na faixa de operação da variável controlada e, geralmente apresentam baixa robustez quando aplicados em sistemas não lineares. O objetivo deste trabalho é desenvolver controladores não lineares com diferentes estruturas e analisá-los quando aplicados em um protótipo do sistema físico. Inicialmente, o sistema é modelado matematicamente através da abordagem fenomenológica. Em seguida, os parâmetros do modelo são identificados através de dados obtidos experimentalmente. Conhecendo bem a dinâmica do sistema através do modelo, são projetados três controladores de diferentes estruturas utilizando simulações computacionais. O primeiro é o PID clássico, controle linear amplamente utilizado em processos industriais. O segundo controlador é um PID com topologia não linear, denominado NPID. Este visa reduzir as limitações encontradas no PID linear, através de funções não lineares em seus termos. O último e mais complexo se trata do controle por modos deslizantes (SMC). Também com estrutura não linear, o SMC possui como característica intrínseca a robustez a variações da planta. Ao final, são realizadas simulações e os controladores avaliados são implementados de maneira digital em um hardware de controle e aplicados em uma planta piloto de levitação eletromagnética. Os resultados de desempenho obtidos permitem avaliar qual topologia de controlador melhor se enquadra diante dessa aplicação. / Electromagnetic levitation systems are of interest when it is necessary the use of technology involving reduction of friction, acting without physical contact, rotating machinery and high speed trains. Due to the nonlinear dynamics, researchers have paid attention to the development of more sophisticated controllers, in order to improve the performance of these systems. Linear controllers have limitations in the operating range of the controlled variable and generally have low robustness when applied to linear systems. The objective of this work is to develop nonlinear controllers with different structures and analyze them, when applied to a prototype of the physical system. Initially the system is modeled mathematically through the phenomenological approach. Then the model parameters are identified by experimentally obtained data. Knowing the dynamic of the system through the model, three different controllers are designed using computer simulations. The first is the classic PID, a linear control widely used in industrial processes. The second controller is a PID with nonlinear topology, called NPID. This controller is intended to reduce the limitations found in the linear PID through non linear functions on its terms. The last and most complex is the sliding mode control (SMC). Also a nonlinear structure, the SMC has the intrinsic characteristic of robustness to variations of the plant. In the end, the simulations are performed and the evaluated controllers are implemented in digital form in a hardware control and applied in a pilot plant of an electromagnetic levitation system. With the performance results it is possible to verify which controller topology best fits this application.

Abstract : Over the past three decades, various fields have witnessed a successful application of active magnetic bearing (AMB) systems. Their favorable features include supporting high-speed rotation, low power consumption, and rotor dynamics control. Although their losses are much lower than roller bearings, these losses could limit the operation in some applications such as flywheel energy storage systems and vacuum applications. Many researchers focused their efforts on boosting magnetic bearings energy efficiency via minimizing currents supplied to electromagnetic coils either by a software solution or a hardware solution. According to a previous study, we adopt the hardware solution in this thesis. More specifically, we investigate developing an efficient and yet simple control scheme for regulating a permanent magnet-biased active magnetic bearing system. The control objective here is to suppress the rotor vibrations and reduce the corresponding control currents as possible throughout a wide operating range. Although adopting the hardware approach could achieve an energy-efficient AMB, employing an advanced control scheme could achieve a further reduction in power consumption. Many advanced control techniques have been proposed in the literature to achieve a satisfactory performance. However, the complexity of the majority of control schemes and the potential requirement of powerful platform could discourage their application in practice. The motivation behind this work is to improve the closed-loop performance without the need to do model identification and following the conventional procedure for developing a model-based controller. Here, we propose applying the hybridization concept to exploit the classical PID control and some nonlinear control tools such as first- and second-order sliding mode control, high gain observer, backstepping, and adaptive techniques to develop efficient and practical control schemes. All developed control schemes in this thesis are digitally implemented and validated on the eZdsp F2812 control board. Therefore, the applicability of the proposed model-free techniques for practical application is demonstrated. Furthermore, some of the proposed control schemes successfully achieve a good compromise between the objectives of rotor vibration attenuation and control currents minimization over a wide operating range. / Résumé: Au cours des trois dernières décennies, divers domaines ont connu une application réussie des systèmes de paliers magnétiques actifs (PMA). Leurs caractéristiques favorables comprennent une capacité de rotation à grande vitesse, une faible consommation d'énergie, et le contrôle de la dynamique du rotor. Bien que leurs pertes soient beaucoup plus basses que les roulements à rouleaux, ces pertes pourraient limiter l'opération dans certaines applications telles que les systèmes de stockage d'énergie à volant d'inertie et les applications sous vide. De nombreux chercheurs ont concentré leurs efforts sur le renforcement de l'efficacité énergétique des paliers magnétiques par la minimisation des courants fournis aux bobines électromagnétiques soit par une solution logicielle, soit par une solution matérielle. Selon une étude précédente, nous adoptons la solution matérielle dans cette thèse. Plus précisément, nous étudions le développement d'un système de contrôle efficace et simple pour réguler un système de palier magnétique actif à aimant permanent polarisé. L'objectif de contrôle ici est de supprimer les vibrations du rotor et de réduire les courants de commande correspondants autant que possible tout au long d'une large plage de fonctionnement. Bien que l'adoption de l'approche matérielle pourrait atteindre un PMA économe en énergie, un système de contrôle avancé pourrait parvenir à une réduction supplémentaire de la consommation d'énergie. De nombreuses techniques de contrôle avancées ont été proposées dans la littérature pour obtenir une performance satisfaisante. Cependant, la complexité de la majorité des systèmes de contrôle et l'exigence potentielle d’une plate-forme puissante pourrait décourager leur application dans la pratique. La motivation derrière ce travail est d'améliorer les performances en boucle fermée, sans la nécessité de procéder à l'identification du modèle et en suivant la procédure classique pour développer un contrôleur basé sur un modèle. Ici, nous proposons l'application du concept d'hybridation pour exploiter le contrôle PID classique et certains outils de contrôle non linéaires tels que contrôle par mode glissement du premier et du second ordre, observateur à grand gain, backstepping et techniques adaptatives pour développer des systèmes de contrôle efficaces et pratiques. Tous les systèmes de contrôle développés dans cette thèse sont numériquement mis en oeuvre et évaluées sur la carte de contrôle eZdsp F2812. Par conséquent, l'applicabilité des techniques de modèle libre proposé pour l'application pratique est démontrée. En outre, certains des régimes de contrôle proposés ont réalisé avec succès un bon compromis entre les objectifs au rotor d’atténuation des vibrations et la minimisation des courants de commande sur une grande plage de fonctionnement.

Les avancées technologiques, dues à l’avènement des nouvelles technologies d’information etde communication, ont donné naissance au concept des Systèmes de Transport Intelligents (STI).Les objectifs de telles applications consistent à apporter des solutions efficaces pour faire face auxproblèmes quotidiens des phénomènes de congestion. L’importance ainsi que les enjeux socioéconomiquesposés par les congestions imposent d’introduire des solutions innovantes utilisantles avancées récentes dans le domaine de la commande. Les travaux présentés dans cette thèse sesituent dans le cadre des STI et traitent des problèmes de la commande du trafic autoroutier et surles Voies Rapides Urbaines (VRU). Parmi les techniques de commande utilisée, nos travaux se focalisentprincipalement sur le contrôle d’accès isolé. L’objectif d’une telle action de régulation estd’agir sur le débit des rampes d’entrée, via des feux de signalisation, afin de maintenir la densitésur la voie principale aux alentours d’un seuil critique permettant ainsi, une utilisation optimale del’infrastructure autoroutière ou des VRU. L’algorithme proposé repose sur l’utilisation conjointede la platitude différentielle et le concept de la commande par mode glissant d’ordre supérieur. Laprincipale caractéristique de la platitude réside dans sa capacité à assurer une génération de trajectoiressans intégration d’aucune équation différentielle du modèle étudié. L’intérêt de la commandepar mode glissant d’ordre supérieur est de permettre le suivi de trajectoires d’une manière robustemême en présence d’incertitudes et de perturbations typiques aux systèmes de trafic. La pertinencede l’approche proposée est validée via un ensemble de simulations avec des données réelles d’uneportion de l’autoroute A6 du périphérique de Paris. De plus, la validation a été enrichie par l’évaluationde performances basée sur des critères couramment utilisés par les exploitants. L’ensembledes résultats ouvre la voie à plusieurs perspectives d’amélioration et de généralisation de cettecommande à des réseaux routiers plus complexes. / The technological advances, due to the advent of the new information and communication technologieshave given rise to the Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) concept. The objectivesof such applications are to provide effective solutions to deal with the daily problems of congestion.The importance as well as the socio-economic challenges raised by congestion requires theintroduction of innovative solutions based on the latest advances in the automatic control field. Theworks presented in this thesis lie in the frame of ITS and treat the problems of the freeway andUrban Express Routes (UER) control. Among the used control techniques, our works focus mainlyon the isolated ramp metering. The objective of this control measurement is to act on the on-rampflow, through traffic lights, in order to keep the traffic density on the mainstream section around acritical threshold allowing then an optimal use of the freeway or UER infrastructures. The proposedalgorithm rests on the jointly use of differential flatness and high order sliding mode control(HOSMC) concept. The main characteristic of the differential flatness lies in its ability to providea trajectory generation, without integration of any differential equation of the studied model. Onthe other hand, the advantage of HOSMC is to allow a robust trajectory tracking even in the case ofthe presence of uncertainties and disturbances which are typical to traffic systems. The relevanceof the proposed approach is validated through a set of numerical simulations using real-data froma part of the A6 freeway from Paris ring. In addition, the validation step has been enriched by theperformance evaluation based on a set of criteria commonly used by the freeway practitioners. Theobtained results paves the way to several perspectives in order to improve the proposed controlapproach and its generalization for more complex freeway networks.

Magnetorheological (MR) dampers are adaptive devices whose properties can be adjusted through the application of a controlled voltage signal. A semi-active suspension system incorporating MR dampers combines the advantages of both active and passive suspensions. For this reason, there has been a continuous effort to develop control algorithms for MR-damped vehicle suspension systems to meet the requirements of the automotive industry. The overall aims of this thesis are twofold: (i) The investigation of non-parametric techniques for the identification of the nonlinear dynamics of an MR damper. (ii) The implementation of these techniques in the investigation of MR damper control of a vehicle suspension system that makes minimal use of sensors, thereby reducing the implementation cost and increasing system reliability. The novel contributions of this thesis can be listed as follows: 1- Nonparametric identification modelling of an MR damper using Chebyshev polynomials to identify the damping force from both simulated and experimental data. 2- The neural network identification of both the direct and inverse dynamics of an MR damper through an experimental procedure. 3- The experimental evaluation of a neural network MR damper controller relative to previously proposed controllers. 4- The application of the neural-based damper controller trained through experimental data to a semi-active vehicle suspension system. 5- The development and evaluation of an improved control strategy for a semi-active car seat suspension system using an MR damper. Simulated and experimental validation data tests show that Chebyshev polynomials can be used to identify the damper force as an approximate function of the displacement, velocity and input voltage. Feed-forward and recurrent neural networks are used to model both the direct and inverse dynamics of MR dampers. It is shown that these neural networks are superior to Chebyshev polynomials and can reliably represent both the direct and inverse dynamic behaviours of MR dampers. The neural network models are shown to be reasonably robust against significant temperature variation. Experimental tests show that an MR damper controller based a recurrent neural network (RNN) model of its inverse dynamics is superior to conventional controllers in achieving a desired damping force, apart from being more cost-effective. This is confirmed by introducing such a controller into a semi-active suspension, in conjunction with an overall system controller based on the sliding mode control algorithm. Control performance criteria are evaluated in the time and frequency domains in order to quantify the suspension effectiveness under bump and random road excitations. A study using the modified Bouc-Wen model for the MR damper, and another study using an actual damper fitted in a hardware-in-the-loop- simulation (HILS), both show that the inverse RNN damper controller potentially gives significantly superior ride comfort and vehicle stability. It is also shown that a similar control strategy is highly effective when used for a semi-active car seat suspension system incorporating an MR damper.

La commande du système de Direction Assistée Electrique (DAE) est un défi majeur en raison de ses multiples objectifs et de la nécessitée de réaliser plusieurs mesures pour la mettre en oeuvre. La commande doit assurer : le suivi du couple d’assistance de référence tout en assurant la stabilité du système et sans introduire des retards, l’atténuation des vibrations provoquées par chacune des entrées du système, la transmission des informations de la route au conducteur pour un bon confort et une meilleure sensation de conduite, l’amélioration de la performance de retour au centre. La commande doit également être robuste vis-à-vis des erreurs de modélisation, des incertitudes des paramètres, et des perturbations extérieures. En outre, la mise en oeuvre de la commande nécessite plusieurs mesures telles que : l’angle au volant, l’angle du moteur, la vitesse du moteur, le couple conducteur et le couple de réaction de la route. / The control of Electric Power Assisted Steering (EPAS) system is a challengingproblem due to the multiple objectives and the need of several pieces of information to implement the control. The control objectives are to generate assist torque with fast responses to driver’s torque commands, insure system stability, attenuate vibrations, transmit the road information to the driver, and improve the steering wheel returnability and free control performance. The control must also be robust against modeling errors and parameter uncertainties. In addition, several pieces of information are required to implement the control, such as steering wheel angle, motor velocity, driver torque and road reaction torque.

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This thesis evaluates different controllers for traction control on an electric forklift truck and has been done in cooperation with Toyota Material Handling Manufacturing Sweden. The need for a traction control system has increased with the introduction of lithium-ion batteries replacing the older lead-acid batteries, reducing the battery weight and therefore the downward force on the driving wheel increasing the risk for slip. The forklift truck was modelled using Simulink and validated by experiment. Different possible control strategies were investigated and three were chosen for implementation in simulation. These were controllers based on Model Following Control, Maximum Transmissible Torque Estimation and Sliding Mode Control. Model Following Control makes use of a nominal model to compare actual wheel speed values with nominal wheel speed values to determine if slip is occurring, Maximum Transmissible Torque Estimation makes use of a closed-loop disturbance observer to compute the maximum transmissible torque possible without inducing slip and using it as a limitation on the input signal, and Sliding Mode Control uses different functions to \say{slide} along a sliding surface to stay around a specific slip value. All three controller types were developed both as speed controlled and torque controlled. All of the controllers could reduce slip heavily in simulation. The Maximum Transmissible Torque Estimation controller reduced slip the most and kept oscillations at a minimum, but was not as responsive as the others to driver commands. The conclusion was that the controller of choice would depend on the working environment of the forklift truck. In a low friction environment where slip is expected to occur often, the Maximum Transmissible Torque Estimation controller is advisable, while the other two would be a better choice for environment with low slip occurrence. The use of torque control, while often better with regards to decreasing slip, could not be advised due to a perceived increase in implementation cost.

In this dissertation, we focus on two fundamental problems related to the navigation of ground robots and small Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAVs): cooperative localization and path planning. The theme running through in all of the work is the use of bearing only sensors, with a focus on monocular video cameras mounted on ground robots and UAVs. To begin with, we derive the conditions for the complete observability of the bearing-only cooperative localization problem. The key element of this analysis is the Relative Position Measurement Graph (RPMG). The nodes of an RPMG represent vehicle states and the edges represent bearing measurements between nodes. We show that graph theoretic properties like the connectivity and the existence of a path between two nodes can be used to explain the observability of the system. We obtain the maximum rank of the observability matrix without global information and derive conditions under which the maximum rank can be achieved. Furthermore, we show that for the complete observability, all of the nodes in the graph must have a path to at least two different landmarks of known location. The complete observability can also be obtained without landmarks if the RPMG is connected and at least one of the robots has a sensor which can measure its global pose, for example a GPS receiver. We validate these conditions by simulation and experimental results. The theoretical conditions to attain complete observability in a localization system is an important step towards reliable and efficient design of localization and path planning algorithms. With such conditions, a designer does not need to resort to exhaustive simulations and/or experimentation to verify whether a given selection of a control strategy, topology of the sensor network, and sensor measurements meets the observability requirements of the system. In turn, this leads to decreased requirements of time, cost, and effort for designing a localization algorithms. We use these observability conditions to develop a technique, for camera equipped UAVs, to cooperatively geo-localize a ground target in an urban terrain. We show that the bearing-only cooperative geo-localization technique overcomes the limitation of requiring a low-flying UAV to maintain line-of-sight while flying high enough to maintain GPS lock. We design a distributed path planning algorithm using receding horizon control that improves the localization accuracy of the target and of all of the UAVs while satisfying the observability conditions. Next, we use the observability analysis to explicitly design an active local path planning algorithm for UAVs. The algorithm minimizes the uncertainties in the time-to-collision (TTC) and bearing estimates while simultaneously avoiding obstacles. Using observability analysis we show that maximizing the observability and collision avoidance are complementary tasks. We provide sufficient conditions of the environment which maximizes the chances obstacle avoidance and UAV reaching the goal. Finally, we develop a reactive path planner for UAVs using sliding mode control such that it does not require range from the obstacle, and uses bearing to obstacle to avoid cylindrical obstacles and follow straight and curved walls. The reactive guidance strategy is fast, computationally inexpensive, and guarantees collision avoidance.

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