Robust control of piecewise linear systems: A case study in sheet flow control

This paper presents a control design approach for robust sheet control in a printer paper path. By splitting up the control problem into low level motor control loops and a high level sheet control loop, a hierarchical control structure is obtained. Based on the piecewise linear model of the high level sheet dynamics, the control design is formulated in the H∞H∞ framework. The resulting dynamic output feedback controllers guarantee stability and performance of the closed-loop system. To show the effectiveness of the control design approach in practice, the robust sheet controllers are successfully implemented on an experimental paper path setup.