-**Cutting costs in the design phase**: if the error is not simulated during the design phase, the final performance level can only be found when a costly prototype is build and the performance can be measured physically. If the performance level is not met, the designer has to find out what component or disturbance causes the output to exceed the error budget and then redesign the system. If the error could be simulated beforehand however, changes can be made when the system is still in the design phase, cutting down the costs of the system.
-**Speeding up the design process**: It can give a quick indication if a concept is feasible or not.
Several concepts can be analyzed in a short period of time and the most promising concept can be chosen, speeding up the design process.
-**Enhancing design insight**: If the performance specifications is not met, the designer wants to know which component or what system property is limiting the performance most.
Using the theory of _propagation_, the contribution of each disturbance to the output error can be analyzed and the critical disturbance can be pointed out.
This is usually the case as much effort is put in to make systems have a linear behavior and because feedback loops have a " linearizing" effect on the closed loop behavior.
This is more difficult to satisfy for MIMO systems and the designer must make sure that the separate disturbances all originate from separate independent sources.
Stochastic interpretation of the \\(\mathcal{H}\_2\\) norm: the squared \\(\mathcal{H}\_2\\) norm can be interpreted as the output variance of a system with zero mean white noise input.
#### Using weighting filters to model disturbances {#using-weighting-filters-to-model-disturbances}
In order to synthesize an \\(\mathcal{H}\_2\\) controller that will minimize the output error, the total system including disturbances needs to be modeled as a system with zero mean white noise inputs.
This is done by using weighting filter \\(V\_w\\), of which the output signal has a PSD \\(S\_w(f)\\) when the input is zero mean white noise (Figure [1](#figure--fig:monkhorst04-weighting-filter)).
{{<figuresrc="/ox-hugo/monkhorst04_weighting_filter.png"caption="<span class=\"figure-number\">Figure 1: </span>The use of a weighting filter \\(V\_w(f)\\,[SI]\\) to give the weighted signal \\(\bar{w}(t)\\) a certain PSD \\(S\_w(f)\\).">}}
The white noise input \\(w(t)\\) is dimensionless, and when the weighting filter has units [SI], the resulting weighted signal \\(\bar{w}(t)\\) has units [SI].
Output weighting filters can also be used to scale different outputs relative to each other (Figure [2](#figure--fig:monkhorst04-general-weighted-plant)).
{{<figuresrc="/ox-hugo/monkhorst04_general_weighted_plant.png"caption="<span class=\"figure-number\">Figure 2: </span>The open loop system \\(\bar{G}\\) in series with the diagonal input weightin filter \\(V\_w\\) and diagonal output scaling iflter \\(W\_z\\) defining the generalized plant \\(G\\)">}}
{{<figuresrc="/ox-hugo/monkhorst04_closed_loop_H2.png"caption="<span class=\"figure-number\">Figure 3: </span>The closed loop system with weighting filters included. The system has \\(n\\) disturbance inputs and two outputs: the error \\(e\\) and the control signal \\(u\\). The \\(\mathcal{H}\_2\\) minimized the \\(\mathcal{H}\_2\\) norm of this system.">}}
The resulting problem is a multi-objective control problem: while constraining the variance of the controller output \\(u\\), the variance of the performance channel should be minimized.
This problem can be solved by scaling the controller output \\(u\\) with a factor \\(\alpha\\) during the \\(\mathcal{H}\_2\\) synthesis.
When varying \\(\alpha\\), one can plot the amount of control effort at one axis and the achieve performance on the other axis.
The resulting points lie on the so-called **Pareto curve**.
## Conclusions {#conclusions}
\\(\mathcal{H}\_2\\) control strategy is an extension of the DEB approach.
It offers the designer the opportunity to optimize over the degree of freedom given by the controller, enabling the designer to predict the maximum achievable performance level of a system concept.
Using this technique, the designer is able to objectively compare the performance potential of different system concepts.
The accuracy of the predicted performance by DEB with respect to the measured results can be improved by using higher order models of the disturbances.
Increasing of order of the disturbance model might even allow modelling of harmonic disturbances by using inverse notches.
To achieve the highest degree of prediction accuracy, it is recommended to use to actual measured disturbance spectra in the simulations.
When an \\(\mathcal{H}\_2\\) controller is synthesized for a particular system, it can give the control designer useful hints about how to control the system best for optimal performance.
Drawbacks however are, that no robustness guarantees can be given and that the order of the \\(\mathcal{H}\_2\\) controller will generally be too high for implementation.