8.6 Linearization of Nonlinear Systems In this section we show how to perform linearization of systems described by nonlinear differential equations.

The procedure introduced is based on the Taylor series expansion and on knowledge of nominal system trajectories and nominal system inputs. We will start with a simple scalar rst-order nonlinear dynamic system

Assume that under usual working circumstances this system operates along the

trajectory

while it is driven by the system input

. We call

and

, respectively, the nominal system trajectory and the nominal system input.

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On the nominal trajectory the following differential equation is satised

Assume that the motion of the nonlinear system is in the neighborhood of the nominal system trajectory, that is

where

represents a small quantity. It is natural to assume that the system

motion in close proximity to the nominal trajectory will be sustained by a system input which is obtained by adding a small quantity to the nominal system input

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For the system motion in close proximity to the nominal trajectory, we have

Since

and

are small quantities, the right-hand side can be expanded

into a Taylor series about the nominal system trajectory and input, which produces

Canceling

higher-order

terms

(which

contain

very

small

quantities

), the linear differential equation is obtained

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The partial derivatives in the linearization procedure are evaluated at the nominal points. Introducing the notation

the linearized system can be represented as

In general, the obtained linear system is time varying. Since in this course we study only time invariant systems, we will consider only those examples for which the linearization procedure produces time invariant systems. It remains to nd the initial condition for the linearized system, which can be obtained from

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Similarly, we can linearize the second-order nonlinear dynamic system

by assuming that

and expanding

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into a Taylor series about nominal points



, which leads to

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where the corresponding coefcients are evaluated at the nominal points as

                           

The initial conditions for the second-order linearized system are obtained from

Example 8.15: The mathematical model of a stick-balancing problem is

where

is the horizontal force of a nger and

represents the sticks angular

displacement from the vertical.

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This second-order dynamic system is linearized at the nominal points , producing

      

The linearized equation is given by

important to point out that the same linearized model could have been obtained by setting , which is valid for small values of .

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Note that

since

0 1!!%" ( & $ 

0 1)'%# ( & $ " 2 0 14!3# ( & $ "    !  

. It is

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We can extend the presented linearization procedure to an

-order nonlinear

dynamic system with one input and one output in a straightforward way. However, for multi-input multi-output systems this procedure becomes cumbersome. Using the state space model, the linearization procedure for the multi-input multi-output case is simplied. Consider now the general nonlinear dynamic control system in matrix form
5

where vector, the

, and

are, respectively, the

-dimensional system state space -dimensional vector function. is known and that
6

-dimensional input vector, and the

Assume that the nominal (operating) system trajectory

the nominal system input that keeps the system on the nominal trajectory is given
6

by

.
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Using the same logic as for the scalar case, we can assume that the actual system dynamics in the immediate proximity of the system nominal trajectories can be approximated by the rst terms of the Taylor series. That is, starting with
7 7 7 E D B @ 9 !%IH'8 E D !%B @ F 7 7 7 E D B @ 9 !%CA48 E D !GB @ F 7

and

we expand the right-hand side into the Taylor series as follows

7 7 7

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891

Higher-order terms contain at least quadratic quantities of and

and

. Since

are small their squares are even smaller, and hence the high-order terms

can be neglected. Neglecting higher-order terms, an approximation is obtained

The partial derivatives represent the Jacobian matrices given by

g srd e i pd g hfd e q fpd i g hfd e g i pd

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V U !%T

V U T !%CR

Q 'P

i pd

i pd

e rd

e fd

V U !%T R W V U T R Q !YXS'P t urd e v wpd i R q fpd i e rd q R g g

V U !%T R W V U T R Q '%IS4P i pd i pd e rd ` cb` a V U !YT R W V U T R Q !3#S4P e fd

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Note that the Jacobian matrices have to be evaluated at the nominal points, that

is, at

and

. With this notation, the linearized system has the form

g g g

The output of a nonlinear system satises a nonlinear algebraic equation, that is

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!3

!3

y x

sr r r ur e fd

sr r

p r r cb !%# y '%#S'x

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This equation can also be linearized by expanding its right-hand side into a
h n m !3l k h

Taylor series about nominal points

h h h

and

. This leads to
n m l k j !YCS4i n m !3l k o

linearized part of the output equation is given by

where the Jacobian matrices

and

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Note that

cancels term

By neglecting higher-order terms, the

satisfy

n m l k j '3#S4i o

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z y !%x z y !%x w w { v 'u | } p| d| } p| ~ | } 1| z y !%x w { v 4u w rp q ~ | p1| } ~ d| ~ ~ } p| | } 1| d| | } 1| z y !%x 1p| } d| ~ } p| z y !Yx w { v u w w z y !Yx  1|  p| } X1| ~ pp|  } #1| z y x !%#w { z y x w v 'YXA4u s trp q ~ fp|  ~ d1| } ~  1| } p|  1| ~ p| } } X1|  Xp| w w fp| }  1| } 1|  1| ~ d1| }

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Example 8.16: Let a nonlinear system be represented by

Sfu f f

Assume that the values for the system nominal trajectories and input are known and
f

given by

and

system is obtained as
f

Having obtained the solution of this linearized system under the given system input , the corresponding approximation of the nonlinear system trajectories is

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. The linearized state space equation of this nonlinear

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Example 8.17: Consider the mathematical model of a single-link robotic manipulator with a exible joint given by

respectively, link mass and length, and the change of variables as

the manipulators state space nonlinear model is given by

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where

are angular positions,

are moments of inertia,

is the link spring constant. Introducing

and are,

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are
pCCX

Assuming that the output variable is equal to the links angular position, that is , the matrices

and

are given by

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Take the nominal points as

, then the matrices

and

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