Group Philosophy
The Nonlinear Controls and Robotics group at the University of Florida, is focused on the design and analysis of controllers for nonlinear dynamical systems. The philosophy of the group is that improved performance and new enabling technologies may be realized by maintaining the complete nonlinear model of the systems in their control design. This approach gives rise to significant challenges since nonlinear equations of motion typically do not have an analytical solution, and the system model may be incomplete due to difficulties in modeling certain phenomena such as: nonlinear friction, parametric uncertainty, or unmeasurable signals, which are required to complete the model.
Group Methodology
To address control design and analysis problems, the NCR group's research is focused on the development and application of a Lyapunov control methodology, which incorporates the full nonlinear system dynamics in the design and analysis without requiring the solution of the nonlinear equations of motion. Research efforts are specifically focused on adaptive, robust, and learning control designs for nonlinear systems to address issues related to uncertain nonlinear dynamics with limited or uncalibrated/corrupt sensor information.
