Stability analysis and synthesis for scalar linear systems with a quantized feedback

It is well known that a linear system controlled by a quantized feedback may exhibit the wild dynamic behavior which is typical of a nonlinear system. In the classical literature devoted to control with quantized feedback, the flow of information in the feedback was not considered as a critical parameter. Consequently, in that case, it was natural in the control synthesis to simply choose the quantized feedback approximating the one provided by the classical methods, and to model the quantization error as an additive white noise. On the other hand, if the flow of information has to be limited, for instance, because of the use of a transmission channel with limited capacity, some specific considerations are in order. The aim of this paper is to obtain a detailed analysis of linear scalar systems with a stabilizing quantized feedback control. First, a general framework based on a sort of Lyapunov approach encompassing known stabilization techniques is proposed. In this case, a rather complete analysis can be obtained through a nice geometric characterization of asymptotically stable closed-loop maps. In particular, a general tradeoff relation between the number of quantization intervals, quantifying the information flow, and the convergence time is established. Then, an alternative stabilization method, based on the chaotic behavior of piecewise affine maps is proposed. Finally, the performances of all these methods are compared.