Simultaneous mechanical structure and control system design: Optimization and convex approaches

In the design of a mechanical system, the structural design and the control system design may be performed simultaneously (integrated approach) or separately (sequential approach). By introducing the idea of a decomposable design problem, the problem of why and when the simultaneous structural and control design method should be used is first answered in this paper. A new mechanical structure and control design method, referred to as the Extended Multiple Simultaneous Specification (EMSS) design method is also proposed in this paper. Simultaneously selecting the structural parameters and the control parameters, a family of "sample systems" can be found. Subsequently, a closed-loop system, which satisfies all the design specifications, can be derived by this EMSS method. Two design examples using the optimization method and the EMSS method respectively to solve the mechanical system design problem are given in the end of this paper.