Illustration of the principle of matching with inputs restricted in magnitude and rate of change: vehicle speed control revisited

Abstract

The principle of matching is a concept of design that requires the objects of the design (the system and its environment) be matched. The main objective of a match is to ensure that the set of possible inputs P, which the environment imposes on the system, is a subset of the set of tolerable inputs T (those which are judged to produce an acceptable response from the system). In a recent paper, practical conditions for a match were presented when the set of possible inputs P is characterized by restrictions both on the input and the rate of change of the input, and the set of tolerable inputs T is characterized by bounds on the absolute supremum of the response of the system. In this paper, the use of one of these practical conditions is illustrated in the design of a vehicle speed control system, which is an improvement on a system designed in an earlier paper. Included here is an explanation as to why the practical conditions used in the earlier design cannot be used in this work, whereas the more recent conditions can be used.