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Department of System Dynamics and Control

Head of the Department: Dr. Johann Bals

The System Dynamics and Control Department of the DLR Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics is responsible for advancing the state-of-the-art in system dynamics and control technologies for high-performance mechatronic systems in aerospace, robotics and ground vehicle application. The increasing requirements on higher performance, improved comfort, safety, lower energy consumption, etc. for innovative technical products urge the need for better dynamics and control methods and tools of practical value. In response to this need, the System Dynamics and Control Department conducts research in the following areas:

Multidisciplinary modelling and systems identification
Computational methods for control
Parameter space methods
Non-linear model based control synthesis methods
Optimisation-based multi-disciplinary design and analysis

The above fields of competence and the related control engineering methods and tools are utilised to solve challenging dynamics and control problems in close cooperation with aerospace, automotive, railway and robotics industries. We contribute to solutions in the following areas:

Industrial Robot Dynamics and Control
Flight Dynamics and Control
Vehicle Dynamics and Control
More Electric Aircraft Systems

Staff at the Department of System Dynamics and Control

System Dynamics and Control

Aeronautics

Dynamics and control in aeronautics is a key area of research and application within the department Control Design Engineering. We are specialists in multi-disciplinary design of flight control laws, as well as in development of multi-disciplinary models for aircraft flight dynamics and aircraft on-board systems.

Automotive

Activities in the automotive field are mainly embedded in the DLR research area “Drivers Assistance Systems”. In the associated project “Mechatronic Chassis” we coordinate joint research with DLR-Institute of Transportation Systems (TS) and DLR-Institute of Flight Systems (FT). ....

Railway Systems

The present-day research activities in railway vehicles are focussed on 2 areas, namely on vehicle dynamics and on energy systems, and are embedded in the DLR-Project “Next Generation Train” (NGT). In particular we are concerned with modelling and simulation of the wheel-rail-interface in order to improve the dynamical, acoustical and wear related properties of vehicle systems that interact with the intrastructure. Braking and brake control, crosswind stability and mechatronic runnings gears are additional working fields. The object-oriented multi-domain language Modelica is applied in order to model, analyse and optimise energy systems in trains.

Industrial Robot Control

We cooperate with the robot manufacturer KUKA. The main issues are to improve the dynamic performance of industrial robots by optimizing feedforward and feedback control laws. Based on non-linear dynamic robot models, feedforward control is used to maximize robot speed of the reference trajectory, and feedback control is used to improve contour following by vibration attenuation.

Control Methods & Tools

Advanced control design processes are model-based and the control law design problems are also often multi-disciplinary in their nature where many different, often conflicting design requirements have to be fulfilled simultaneously. Tackling control design problems for critical processes in aerospace and robotics demands for efficient and reliable computer-aided methods and tools.