Accomodation of external disturbances in linear regulator and servomechanism problems

Modern linear regulator and servomechanism theories (of the deterministic type) either ignore system disturbances altogether or assume they can be represented by initial conditions on the plant state vector. Controllers designed by such theories may fail to meet performance specifications when the system is subjected to persistently acting disturbances. In this paper, we show how one can modify existing regulator and servomechanism theories to take into account the presence of persistent fluctuating disturbances. By this means one can design a deterministic controller which consistently maintains set-point regulation, or servotracking, in the face of a bread class of realistic external disturbances. In addition, we show how one can systematically exploit any useful effects that may be present in the action of external disturbances.