A state-space approach for remaining useful life control

Abstract

This paper presents a state-space approach for controlling the Remaining Useful Life (RUL) of deteriorating systems. The proposed approach supposes the availability of a deterioration model that links the deterioration rate with some manipulable control inputs. Such a link can be a non-linear monotonic function between the deterioration-rate and the manipulable control inputs. We propose a method for designing both state observer and state feedback controller for RUL prediction and control. We consider that the manipulable inputs are affected by additive random disturbances and possible multiplicative unknown parameters. In addition, we assume that the control decisions can not be applied instantaneously on the system, which is modeled as a time-delay between control decisions and manipulable inputs of the deterioration dynamics. The proposed methodology is illustrated on a simulated study case which considers an exponential degradation model.