Active Control of Complex Physical Systems: An Overview

Active control of complex systems imposes unique requirements for physical models and feedback control strategies. Physical models which are adequate to predict the influence of actuators must be coupled with feedback control approaches suitable for use when system characteristics are incompletely specified a priori and change with time. The present paper describes laboratory scale experiments in which turbomachinery surge and stall and combustion instabilities are successfully attenuated by active means. Work which has been conducted in parallel to develop improved models and control strategies to realize fault tolerant active control of such systems in the full scale operational environment is also discussed.Copyright © 1992 by ASME