Control of systems with actuator amplitude and rate constraints

This paper studies the problem of controller synthesis for systems subject to amplitude and rate saturation constraints in the actuators. It is assumed that dynamic models of order at least 1 are known for the actuators. The controllers designed are dynamic LTI controllers that use only the output of the plant, and not necessarily the states of the actuator. The solvability conditions for the problem are expressed as finite-dimensional linear matrix inequalities. In addition to stabilization, disturbance attenuation in terms of the usual H-norm is also considered. An application to an F/A-18 aircraft model demonstrates the methods developed.