Robust and optimal H∞ control in LabVIEW

State of the art computer-aided control system design (CACSD) tools for robust control offer only very basic commands and consequently require a very detailed mathematical background and advanced user knowledge about syntax and data structures. Also many typical controller design problems have to be reformulated over and over. This contribution therefore aims to tackle these matters by introducing a CACSD-tool with a user-friendly graphical user interface based on LabVIEW. Although not providing quite the flexibility of common low-level design tools, it offers a set of comfortable, ready-to-use solutions for robust H
_∞
controller design and implementation including the field-testing of the control system with a laboratory plant. The structure of the tool provides the possibility to solve a whole range of different MIMO H
_∞
problems, without needing to do tedious algebraic calculations for each respective problem. The originality of this tool thereby lies in the fact that it allows to attain the design goals interactively, i.e. one can infer the consequences of minor changes in the control specifications on the closed-loop system immediately. This provides a deductive approach to understanding H
_∞
control without the necessity to learn complicated mathematical formalisms and syntax.