Input linearization of nonlinear systems via pulse-width control

Abstract

In this note, it is shown that a general nonlinear system can be transformed to an affine nonlinear system by virtue of the use of pulsewidth control. Therefore, the combined system from the pulse width control input to the nonlinear system output behaves as an affine (linear-in-control) system. By this way, a cumbersome nonlinear system model can be transformed to a simpler linear-in-control form without increasing the system dimension; this in turn enables simpler control design. Furthermore, using this methodology, some control design methods developed only for affine systems can be adapted to general nonlinear systems.