Design and configuration of networks of explicitly controllable technical units
Most technical systems are hybrid systems, which can be modelled as a combination of continuous dynamic models and discrete-event systems. However, controlling hybrid systems is very challenging due to their variety of dynamics and non-deterministic behavior. In order to deal with the complexity from a design perspective, Flat Hybrid Automata (FHA), as a new subclass of hybrid systems, has recently been researched. FHA consists of discrete-event subsystems, continuous-valued, continuous-time subsystems, and a set of deterministic continuous and discrete switching rules. FHA relies on the concepts of differential flatness for the continuous subsystems and strongly connected automation graphs for the discrete-event subsystems, which offers deterministic, reachable and explicitly invertible behavior. Due to this behavior, discrete and continuous input trajectories of FHA can be determined explicitly from given output trajectories by system inversion. And optimal input trajectories can be filtered out and used as guidance for trajectory planning in industrial processes, robotics, power systems and many other potential application scenarios.