A control design for a class of nonlinear systems using linear techniques

This article deals with the design of a controller for a class of nonlinear systems. The controller design is based on the construction of a similarity matrix that allows the system to be transformed into an extended Jordan canonical controllable form. Such a canonical form is shown to facilitate the design of a controller because it provides additional degrees of freedom to tune the controller parameters. In addition, we show that such a similarity matrix coincides with the well-known results related to the transformation of a linear controllable system into the Brunowski canonical form. The result is applied to a synchronous generator model to control its states variables at their equilibrium positions, and the performance of the corresponding controller is shown via simulation.