Sensor Fault-Tolerant Control Design for Magnetic Brake System.

The purpose of the paper is to develop an efficient approach to fault-tolerant control for nonlinear systems of magnetic brakes. The challenging problems of accurate modeling, reliable fault detection and a control design able to compensate for potential sensor faults are addressed. The main idea here is to make use of the repetitive character of the control task and apply iterative learning control based on the observational data to accurately tune the system models for different states of the system. The proposed control scheme uses a learning controller built on a mixture of neural networks that estimate system responses for various operating points; it is then able to adapt to changing working conditions of the device. Then, using the tracking error norm as a sufficient statistic for detection of sensor fault, a simple thresholding technique is provided for verification of the hypothesis on abnormal sensor states. This also makes it possible to start the reconstruction of faulty sensor signals to properly compensate for the control of the system. The paper highlights the components of the complete iterative learning procedure including the system identification, fault detection and fault-tolerant control. Additionally, a series of experiments was conducted for the developed control strategy applied to a magnetic brake system to track the desired reference with the acceptable accuracy level, taking into account various fault scenarios.

Neural-network-based iterative learning control of nonlinear systems.

This work reports on a novel approach to effective design of iterative learning control of repetitive nonlinear processes based on artificial neural networks. The essential idea discussed here is to enhance the iterative learning scheme with neural networks applied for controller synthesis as well as for system output prediction. Consequently, an iterative control update rule is developed through efficient data-driven scheme of neural network training. The contribution of this work consists of proper characterization of the control design procedure and careful analysis of both convergence and zero error at convergence properties of the proposed nonlinear learning controller. Then, the resulting sufficient conditions can be incorporated into control update for the next process trial. The proposed approach is illustrated by two examples involving control design for pneumatic servomechanism and magnetic levitation system.

Optimum design of experiments for enzyme inhibition kinetic models.

We find closed-form expressions for the D-optimum designs for three- and four-parameter nonlinear models arising in kinetic models for enzyme inhibition. We calculate the efficiency of designs over a range of parameter values and make recommendations for design when the parameter values are not well known. In a three-parameter experimental example, a standard design has an efficiency of 18.2% of the D-optimum design. Experimental results from a standard design with 120 trials and a D-optimum design with 21 trials give parameter estimates that are in close agreement. The estimated standard errors of these parameter estimates confirm our theoretical results on efficiency and thus on the serious savings that can be made by the use of D-optimum designs.

Potential application of D-optimal designs in the efficient investigation of cytochrome P450 inhibition kinetic models.

Correctly chosen d-optimal designs provide efficient experimental schemes when the aim of the investigation is to obtain precise estimates of parameters. In the current work, estimates of parameters refer to the enzyme kinetic parameters V(max) and K(m), but they also refer to the inhibition constant K(i). In general, this experimental approach is performed on a grid of values of the design variables. However, this approach may not be very efficient, in the sense that the parameter estimates (V(max), K(m), and K(i)) have unnecessarily high variances. For good estimates of parameters, the most efficient designs consist of clusters of replicates of a few sets of experimental conditions. The current study compares the application of such d-optimal designs with that of a conventional approach in assessing the competitive inhibitory potency of fluconazole and sertraline toward CYP2C9 and 2D6, respectively. In each instance, the parameter estimates, namely V(max), K(m), and K(i), were predicted well using the d-optimal design compared with those measured using the rich data sets, for both inhibitors. We show that d optimality can provide more efficient designs for estimating the model parameters, including K(i). We also show that real cost savings can be made by carefully planning studies that use the theory of optimal experimental design.