Simultaneous robust model predictive control and state estimation for nonlinear systems with state- and input-dependent uncertainties

The convergence and stability of uncertain nonlinear systems is a challenging problem in the nonlinear control area. Besides, in many practical cases, all states are not measurable and are affected by measurement noise. Based on this motivation, the first objective of this paper is to design a novel output feedback robust model predictive control approach for nonlinear systems with state- and input-dependent uncertainties and measurement noise. This approach combines state estimation and robust model predictive control (MPC) into one min–max optimization and by solving the optimization, these two tasks are performed simultaneously. The studied nonlinear system comprises a linear part, a nonlinear part, and a function that denotes the state- and input-dependent uncertainties. Therefore, the other objective is to reduce the computational complexity; thus, the system's nonlinear term and the aforementioned uncertainties are converted into additional disturbances. Subsequently, the optimization problem becomes a quadratic form, which leads to global convergence with the appropriate selection of objective function weights. Besides, this paper explores the convergence of the closed-loop system states and the sufficient synthesis conditions to guarantee input-to-state stability. The implementation on a numerical example and a CSTR process demonstrate the applicability and reliability of the proposed approach.