Evolving Systems: Nonlinear Adaptive Key Component Control with Persistent Disturbance Rejection

This paper presents an introduction to Evolving Systems, which are autonomously controlled subsystems that self-assemble into a new Evolved System with a higher purpose. Evolving Systems of aerospace structures often require additional control when assembling to maintain stability during the entire evolution process. This is the concept of adaptive key component control which operates through one specific component to maintain stability during the evolution. In addition this control must overcome persistent disturbances that occur while the evolution is in progress. We present theoretical results for the successful operation of nonlinear adaptive key component control in the presence of such disturbances and an illustrative example.