Automatic Design of Robust Optimal Controller for Interval Plants using Genetic Programming and Kharitonov Theorem

This paper presents a novel approach to automatic design of a robust optimal controller for interval plants with Genetic Programming based on Kharitonov Theorem (KT), which provides a theoretical foundation in the design of robust controller for interval plants. The structure and parameters of the robust optimal controller for interval plants are optimized by Genetic Programming and the Generalized KT related stability criteria are integrated into the solution to guarantee the stability of the closed-loop system. Consequently, the evolved controller not only minimizes time-weighted absolute error (ITAE) of the closed-loop system, but also stabilizes the whole interval plant family robustly. Finally, the simulations on a benchmark problem show that the proposed method can effectively generate a robust optimal controller for interval plants. © 2011, the authors.