Control Department Computer Control laboratory ESIEE, Paris, France

Six month or one year project proposal:

Subject: Hybrid Control System Design

A Hybrid Control System is primarly build from two types of components or blocks: - Real-time control loops - Logic based decision-makers.

These components are fundamentally different in terms of the data on which they operate, their specification, and their role in the overall control system. However, in many cases both are needed for the controller to function well.

1. Real-Time Control Loops.

The goal of a real-time controller is to modify the orperational behavior of some physical system so that new system matches some desired behavior to within a given tolerance. Control engineering methods and CASCD tools are used to design this.

2. Logic-Based Decision-Makers

The decision-making structures used in hybrid control systems typically can be cast into if-then structure, which can be represented as a finite state machine (FSM) or a discrete-event system (DES). The FSM operates on Boolean (true/false) data; thus, to be useful in a control loop, information about the plant and its controllers needs to be available in a boolean form. Given these Boolean measures of state of the plant, control logic can then be designed to provide coordinating meta-control for the real-time moops.

3. Hybrid Controller Design.

To form effective control systems for complex plants, a number of individual real time controllers must be woven together, fixed control law generally cannot handle large changes in the dynamics of a complicated plant while maintaining high-performance control throughout. A useful design procedure is to build a set of controllers-then combine them so that the individual real-time controller smmothly hand off active control of the plant as the operating point or environmental conditions change.

Project objectives

The object of the project may be a Heat Pump or the Roll-Bar or others systems which are disponible in our laboratory. The Hybrid Controller is an interesting method to control them.

For the design of real-time control loops and the design of meta-controller the CASCD tools, Matlab/Simulink, Matrixx/Xmath or Scilab are disponible. A DSP processor will be used for the implementation of of the code generation of the real-time/Boolean interface.

A Design Interface Tool may be written for Hybrif Controll Design and Supervision of the controlled system. The GUI tools of Matlab/Simulink or Matrixx/Xmath or Visual C++ coupled with the design CASCD tools diponible in our Laboratory.

Possible project extension

A posible extension of the project may be the Fault Detection and Isolation which may be included in the Supervision Module. This will make the third level of the Control Architecture.

For more information on the project you may contact:

Arben. Çela or Alain Carrière at the Control Department of ESIEE