Internal model based tracking and disturbance rejection for stable well-posed systems

In this paper we solve the tracking and disturbance rejection problem for infinite-dimensional linear systems, with reference and disturbance signals that are finite superpositions of sinusoids. We explore two approaches, both based on the internal model principle. In the first approach, we use a low gain controller, and here our results are a partial extension of results by Hamalainen and Pohjolainen. In their papers, the plant is required to have an exponentially stable transfer function in the Callier-Desoer algebra, while in this paper we only require the plant to be well-posed and exponentially stable. These conditions are sufficiently unrestrictive to be verifiable for many partial differential equations in more than one space variable. Our second approach concerns the case when the second component of the plant transfer function (from control input to tracking error) is positive. In this case, we identify a very simple stabilizing controller which is again an internal model, but which does not require low gain. We apply our results to two problems involving systems modeled by partial differential equations: the problem of rejecting external noise in a model for structure/acoustics interactions, and a similar problem for two coupled beams. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.