Nonlinear bilateral output-feedback control for a class of viscous Hamilton–Jacobi PDEs

Abstract

We tackle the boundary control and estimation problems for a class of viscous Hamilton–Jacobi PDEs, considering bilateral actuation and sensing, i.e., at the two boundaries of a 1-D spatial domain. We first solve the nonlinear trajectory generation problem for this type of PDEs, providing the necessary feedforward actions at both boundaries. We then design an observer-based output-feedback control law, which consists of two main elements—a nonlinear observer that is constructed utilizing measurements from both boundaries and state-feedback laws, which are employed at the two boundary ends. All of our designs are explicit since they are constructed interlacing a feedback linearizing transformation with backstepping. Due to the fact that the linearizing transformation is locally invertible, only a regional stability result is established, combining this transformation with backstepping, suitably formulated to handle the case of bilateral actuation and sensing. We illustrate the developed methodologies via application to traffic flow control and we present consistent simulation results.