Abstract
In this paper, the physical characteristics of the bond-graph representation are exploited for the purpose of controller synthesis. When the system under control possesses a specific cascade structure, the theoretical results developed allow one to visualize the closed-loop system from the open-loop bond-graph model. With this visualization, it is possible to employ physical intuition to determine the desired closed-loop behaviour that meets the performance requirement. Then the associated control law can be derived using a recursive backstepping procedure in a straightforward manner. This is different from the conventional controller synthesis procedures in which systems are usually dealt with in the mathematical domain; this proposed approach follows closely the physical aspects of system properties and control performance. The usefulness of this method is demonstrated by some examples including a magnetic bearing system.