Optimal Tracking Control for Discrete Time-delay Systems with Persistent Disturbances

Optimal tracking control (OTC) for discrete time-delay systems affected by persistent disturbances with quadratic performance indexes is considered. Optimal tracking controller is designed based on a sensitivity approximation approach. By introducing a sensitivity parameter, we transform the original OTC problem into a series of difference equations without time-advance on time-delay terms. The obtained OTC law consists of analytic feedback and feedforward terms, and a compensation term, which is the sum of the infinite series of adjoint vectors. The compensation term can be obtained with an iterated formula for the adjoint vectors. A simulation example shows that the approximation approach is effective in tracking the reference input and robust with respect to exogenous persistent disturbances.