“Invariance-Inducing” Control of Nonlinear Discrete-Time Dynamical Systems

Abstract The present study aims at the derivation of model-based control laws that attain the invariance objective for nonlinear skew-product discrete-time dynamical systems. The problem under consideration naturally arises in a variety of control problems pertaining to physical/chemical systems, and in the present study, it is conveniently formulated and addressed in the context of functional equations theory. In particular, the mathematical formulation of the problem of interest is realized via a system of nonlinear functional equations (NFEs), and a rather general set of necessary and sufficient conditions for solvability is derived. The solution to the above system of NFEs can be proven to be a unique locally analytic one, and this enables the development of a series solution method that is easily programmable with the aid of a symbolic software package such as MAPLE. It is also shown that, on the basis of the solution to the above system of NFEs, a locally analytic manifold and a nonlinear control law can be explicitly derived that renders the manifold invariant for the class of skew-product systems considered. Furthermore, the restriction of the system dynamics on the aforementioned invariant manifold represents exactly the target controlled system dynamics. Finally, the proposed method is applied to the HF molecular system classically modeled as a rotationless Morse oscillator in the presence of an external laser-field, where the primary objective is molecular dissociation.