Application of a novel robust anti-windup technique to dynamically substructured systems

Dynamically substructured systems (DSS) play an important role in the dynamics testing community. Actuator saturation can be encountered in DSS transfer systems and can significantly influence the testing accuracy. This paper demonstrates the application of a novel robust disturbance rejection anti-windup (AW) technique, modified from [1], to cope with the actuator saturation problem in DSS. Theoretical justification is given for the robust performance of the AW-design approach. Parallels with existing robust AW-design techniques are drawn. The implementation results, from a DSS for a hydraulically-actuated mechanical test rig, confirms the advantage of using this novel approach over some other existing AW approaches. Furthermore, some specific practical issues are discussed on the AW compensator design, such as the tuning of parameters.