Linear Systems ― A Measurement Based Approach

This brief presents recent results obtained on the analysis, synthesis and design of systems described by linear equations. It is well known that linear equations arise in most branches of science and engineering as well as social, biological and economic systems. The novelty of this approach is that no models of the system are assumed to be available, nor are they required. Instead, a few measurements made on the system can be processed strategically to directly extract design values that meet specifications without constructing a model of the system, implicitly or explicitly. These new concepts are illustrated by applying them to linear DC and AC circuits, mechanical, civil and hydraulic systems, signal flow block diagrams and control systems. These applications are preliminary and suggest many open problems. The results presented in this brief are the latest effort in this direction and the authors hope these will lead to attractive alternatives to model-based design of engineering and other systems.

Prof. S.P. Bhattacharyya is internationally renowned for his fundamental contributions to Control Theory. These include the solution of the multivariable servomechanism problem, robust and unknown input observers, pole assignment algorithms, robust stability under parametric uncertainty, fragility of high order controllers and Modern PID control. He has coauthored 7 books and over 200 papers in the Control field. His current research focus is on model free approaches to engineering design, the topic of this monograph. Prof. Bhattacharyya is the Robert M. Kennedy Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Texas A&M University. He is an IEEE Fellow, an IFAC Fellow and a Foreign Member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences. He received the B. Tech degree from IIT Bombay in 1967 and the Ph.D. degree from Rice University in 1971, under the supervision of the late Prof. J.B. Pearson.

Prof. L.H. Keel is a renowned expert in Control Systems research. His research interest includes linear systems theory, complexity Issues in controller design, and robust control. He has co-authored 3 books and approximately 200 journal and conference papers in these areas. He is currently a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Tennessee State University in Nashville, Tennessee, USA. He received his B.S. from Korea University in 1978, and Ph.D. degree from Texas A&M University in 1986.

D. N. Mohsenizadeh received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Shiraz University in 2007 and M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA, in 2010. He is also a Ph.D. student at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Texas A&M University. His research interests are in synthesis of fixed structure controllers, measurement based approaches to linear systems and linear control theory and field of structural analysis. He has also worked with the Boeing Space & Intelligence Systems on designing a new generation of solar arrays.