Observer-based anti-windup compensator design for saturated control systems using an LMI approach

In practical control systems, actuator saturation usually induces a windup phenomenon and potentially results in system instability. Accordingly, this paper develops an observer-based auxiliary anti-windup compensation scheme to mitigate the effects of actuator limitations on the performance and stability of the controlled system. In the proposed approach, the controller output signal passing through the saturation element is treated as an external disturbance imported to the designed controller and an auxiliary controller is designed to minimize the difference between the controller output signal and the system input signal. The conditions required to maintain the system performance in the presence of actuator saturation are formulated as an LMI criterion. The L2-stability criterion of the anti-windup compensator design is also formulated as an LMI condition. It is shown that by integrating the two LMI conditions and solving the resulting optimization problem, the resulting anti-windup controller both minimizes the performance attenuation of the saturated control system and guarantees its L2-stability.