Sterowno

Sterowno is a term used in Polish to denote the steerability or controllability of a system. It describes the capacity to guide the state of a system from an initial configuration to a desired one using admissible control inputs, within specified constraints. The word is derived from the verb sterować, meaning to steer, and in many texts it appears alongside the more common noun sterowność (steerability or controllability).

In engineering and control theory, sterowno is closely related to controllability. For linear time-invariant models, a system is considered to have sterowno if the state can be driven to any target in finite time using appropriate inputs; practically this is assessed via the controllability matrix or Kalman criterion. For nonlinear or constrained systems, sterowno is discussed in terms of reachability, accessibility, and the energy required to reach targets. In practice, numerical simulations and experiments validate sterowno under realistic disturbances and sensor limitations.

Applications of sterowno appear in robotics, autonomous vehicles, aerospace, process control, and human–machine interfaces, where reliable steering of dynamics is essential for performance and safety. Designers aim to maximize sterowno within actuator limits, while ensuring robustness to disturbances and model uncertainty.

Measurement and enhancement: Techniques such as state feedback, observers, robust or adaptive control, and redundancy improve sterowno. When state information is incomplete, estimators or sensor fusion help maintain steering capability.

See also: controllability, reachability, observability, feedback control.