Safe nonlinear controller switching with biomedical engineering applications

Suppose an unknown or only partially identified plant is operating with a known linear controller in a closed-loop, and the use of a known nonlinear controller appears attractive to replace the existing controller, on the basis of limited knowledge of the plant. We apply our novel data-based verification tests for ensuring that the introduction of the new nonlinear controller will stabilize the true plant for two different practical scenarios. First, we explore a dynamic mass system to illustrate how our tests can be utilized for verifying a nonlinear regulator given as a state feedback law. Second, we apply our tests to a biomedical engineering control problem in a multiple model adaptive control setting, where a nonlinear blood pressure regulator is required for better performance.