Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Multi-motor and coupled energy sources are common in practice, e.g. in robots, web handling equipment and power systems, and are increasingly important with the proliferation of electrical and hybrid vehicles and of distributed generation. Handling of multiple objectives and disturbances in modular and tightly coupled systems to obtain practical control structures is a challenge for practicing engineers and for applications that involve critical liability. The main objective of the program is to contribute to the development of control methods and strategies based on energetic characterization of electromechanical systems to improve their overall performance. Specifically, the problem of load sharing in rigidly and flexibly coupled multi-motor systems subject to voltage disturbance and internal stability criteria will be studied, in particular in the context of energy efficiency optimization. Practical control structures with guaranteed stability will be developed using a mixed backstepping and inversion based control from Energetic Macroscopic Representation (EMR), and the results will be validated experimentally on a multi-motor test-bed. A common EMR-backstepping approach will provide a systematic approach to deal with energy management, load sharing and coupled dynamics leading to control laws that are attractive for industrial implementation by the accessibility of the design approach and the guaranteed stability it offers. Significant energy savings are possible by optimizing load sharing in multi-motor systems. However, the approach is not limited to these systems and it can also be applied to other systems such as in distributed generation and in hybrid energy sources systems. Application to traction systems and to different subsystems in electric and hybrid vehicles will constitute one of the outputs of this research program.