Best Text on Robust Control

Linear Optimal Control by Jeffy J. Burls.

regards, srinivas

I would hardly consider some MatLab commands to be "practical".

I have "Robust Control, The Parametric Approach" by Bhattacharyya, Chapellat and Keel. It is _all_ math, but the math directly ties into linear control systems theory. I found that I could use my experience with real-world control problems to tie it in to practice in a fairly direct manner.

YMMV -- I learned early that the control systems literature has a lot of "look at the pretty math" and it's up to you to take those nice clean equations and turn them into something that'll control a ball of greasy dirt with wires going in and a shaft coming out.

By far the best book on robust control I have ever read is: S. Skogestad, I. Postlethwaite. Multivariable Feedback Control: Analysis and Design. John Wiley & Sons, 2nd ed., 2005. Even though the title does not include the keyword ROBUST, the book covers both analysis and design of robust controllers (with preference to the so-called frequency domain methods like Hinf and mu). Perhaps this title is an evidence, that robustness is nothing extra, it is just a must for a regular control system.

I find the book fairly exceptional because it really shows HOW TO USE the stuff like Hinf and mu for solving nontrivial control design tasks like control of destillation column. All this tedious analysis of Riccati equations is performed elswhere. This book teaches you to do the design, not to derive formulas. This is definitely not to say that the book is simplistic.

I rate the new edition high also because the authors invested their time into updating it considerably. New theoretical results are included, all the Matlab snippets are now in the new object oriented version of Robust Control Toolbox.

The first three chapters can be downloaded from the author's page at

Best regards, Zdenek Hurak, Czech Technical University in Prague

A little bit easier to digest (at least for me) are these two books on control of systems with parametric uncertainties:

1.) J. Ackermann. Robust Control: The Parameter Space Approach. Springer-Verlag London, 2002: revolves about analysis and design for systems with just a few uncertain physical parameters using some sort of graphical methods. The author has a reputation of practically inclined researcher (he is/was affiliated with an aerospace research intitute DLR in Germany) and a considerable part of the book describes a case-study in car-steering. There is also a Matlab toolbox called Paradise, which implements the described procedures: 2.) R. B. Barmish. New Tools for Robustness of Linear Systems. MacMillan, 1994. Nicely written monograph on analysis of robustness, roughly covers the same scope as Bhattacharyya, but as an introduction is a lot easier.

Best regards, Zdenek Hurak

for me) are these two books on

I remember in the 1980s Isaac Horowitz (1920 - 2005 of QFT fame) ranting about the new term robustness which had become fashionable. This, he said, just proved what he had been saying for so long, that control theorists had lost their way, "because gentlemen, robustness is what feedback control theory has always been about!"

fred

I read all of them, all from internet in date order from oldest to newest:

1. John Doyle, Bruce Francis, Allen Tannenbaum: Feedback Control Theory, Published by Macmillan in 1992,
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   Nice theoretical overview of significant ideas in robust theory; norms, derived formulas on robust stability and performance, loopshaping (robust in frequency domain).

1. Michael Lemmon: Lectures in Robust Optimal Control, Dept. of Electrical Engineering, University of Notre Dame,
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   Mostly theory and theory but then, suddenly, really nice loopshaping examples.

2. Okko H. Bosgra, Huibert Kwakernaak, Gjerrit Meinsma: Design Methods for Control Systems. Dutch Institute of Systems and Control,
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   My favourite. Theory with many valuable conclusions.

Hello

I have read some of "Robust Systems - Theory and Applications" and found it quite nice. It is written by Ricardo S. Sánchez-Peña and Mario sznaier. I have also experienced that the help files in Matlab are very thorough. I would read the introduction in a book, and then start playing with Matlab and reading help files.

Best regards

Anders Jorgensen