Passive Controller Realization of a Bicubic Admittance Containing a Pole at s=0 With No More Than Five Elements for Inerter-Based Mechanical Control

Abstract This paper is concerned with a passive network synthesis problem about the damper-spring-inerter realization of a bicubic admittance containing a pole at s = 0 with at most five elements, where the least number of elements for the possible realizations is four. The admittances of many passive mechanisms (controllers) in inerter-based control systems are in this form. A specific four-element realizability that is a parallel connection of a spring and a three-element subnetwork is first solved. By utilizing the realizability constraints based on graph theory, it is proved that only one configuration can cover all the other four-element cases through the discussions of other possible network graphs. By deriving its realizability condition, a necessary and sufficient condition for the four-element realizations can be combined. More generally, the five-element realizability can be investigated. The specific five-element realizability that is the parallel connection of a spring and a four-element subnetwork is solved. By making use of realizability constraints described by network graphs and eliminating impossible configurations, a set of four configurations is found out to cover all the other five-element cases. By investigating their realizability conditions, a necessary and sufficient condition for the five-element realizations can be combined. The results of this paper can reduce the realizability redundancy compared with classical synthesis approaches like Bott–Duffin procedure, which provide a first critical step towards solving the minimal realization problem of such admittances. The results can be applied to the design and optimization of mechanical control systems based on inerters, and in the long term can also contribute to the development of other areas of circuits and systems.