Input linearization of nonlinear systems via pulse-width control

Abstract

In this note, it is shown that a general nonlinear system can be transformed to an affine nonlinear system by virtue of the use of pulse-width control. Therefore, the combined system from the pulse width control input to the nonlinear system output behaves as an affine (linear-in-control) system. By this way, a cumbersome nonlinear system model can be transformed to a simpler linear-in-control form without increasing the system dimension; this in turn enables simpler control design. Furthermore, using this methodology, some control design methods developed only for affine systems can be adapted to general nonlinear systems.