New control framework boosts robustness in PH systems

Mohammad Reza Jafari Harandi from the University of Alberta has published a groundbreaking paper on disturbance rejection in port-Hamiltonian (PH) systems. The research titled 'Matched Disturbance Rejection for Port-Hamiltonian Systems with Coupled Dynamics' presents a unified framework that incorporates disturbance dynamics directly into PH representations.

The framework advances existing methods by accommodating more general classes of coupled PH disturbances, including nonzero interconnection and damping terms. Harandi develops two distinct control designs: one for known disturbance storage parameters and another that uses online parameter estimation for unknown symmetric storage matrices. Both methods guarantee asymptotic convergence of the plant state to equilibrium while maintaining the PH structure in closed-loop dynamics. The work significantly broadens the applicability of disturbance rejection approaches beyond traditional restricted disturbance models.

Published on arXiv as eess.SY:2608.11490, the paper represents an important contribution to systems and control theory with potential applications in power systems, robotics, and networked control where maintaining PH properties is crucial for stability and energy conservation.