Nonlinear Moving Horizon Estimation for a High-Rise Adaptive Structure

Abstract

The scarcity of resources and the rising population are becoming an increasing problem that require innovations in the construction sector. Adaptive structures enable the reduction of structural weight by being equipped with sensors and actuators to withstand external loads such as wind or earthquakes. As many buildings, these structures can have tension-only elements, which need to be modeled nonlinearly. A reliable control requires the knowledge of the system state. For this purpose, model-based estimators that account for the nonlinearities must be chosen. In this contribution, a nonlinear Moving Horizon Estimator (NMHE) is designed for a high-rise adaptive structure. In a simulation study with an excitation by an initial condition or an unknown wind disturbance, the NMHE is compared to linear filters. The NMHE outperforms the linear filters in all simulations. For a wind disturbance, it can be shown that linear filters are not sufficient to correctly reconstruct the state. In contrast to them, the estimation error of the NMHE is significantly reduced.