Achieving Performance and Safety in Large Scale Systems with Saturation using a Nonlinear System Level Synthesis Approach

Abstract: We present a novel class of nonlinear controllers that interpolates among differently behaving linear controllers as a case study for recently proposed Linear and Nonlinear System Level Synthesis framework. The structure of the nonlinear controller allows for simultaneously satisfying performance and safety objectives defined for small- and large-disturbance regimes. The proposed controller is distributed, handles delays, sparse actuation, and localizes disturbances. We show our nonlinear controller always outperforms its linear counterpart for constrained LQR problems. We further demonstrate the anti-windup property of an augmented control strategy based on the proposed controller for saturated systems via simulation.