Global stabilization via nested saturation function for high‐order feedforward nonlinear systems with unknown time‐varying delays

We consider the global stabilization problem for a class of high‐order feedforward time‐delay nonlinear systems. The nested saturation function method is inherently improved to develop a continuous controller, without the requirements on the memory of the past input and the prior information of the time‐varying delays. The proposed controller is less conservative in terms of the level of nonlinearities whose upper bounds include high‐order, low‐order, and linear terms. The design procedures are provided based on the sign function technique, the homogeneous domination idea, and the search of Lyapunov function. Finally, a simulation example is used to demonstrate the application of the obtained theoretical results. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Global output‐feedback stabilization for high‐order nonlinear systems with unknown growth rate

This paper considers the global stabilization via time‐varying output‐feedback for a class of high‐order uncertain nonlinear systems with rather weak assumptions. Essentially different from the existing literature, the systems under investigation simultaneously have more serious nonlinearities, unknowns, immeasurableness, and time‐variations, which are indicated from the unknown time‐varying control coefficients and the higher‐order and lower‐order unmeasured states dependent growth with the rate of unknown function of time and output. Recognizing that adaptive technique is quite hard to apply, a time‐varying design scheme is proposed by combining time‐varying approach, certainty equivalence principle and homogeneous domination approach. One key point in the design scheme is the selection of the design functions of time, in order to compensate/capture the serious unknowns and serious time‐variations, and another one is the design of a time‐varying observer to rebuild the unmeasured system states. With the appropriate choice of the involved design functions, the designed controller makes all the signals of the closed‐loop system globally bounded and ultimately converge to zero. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Nonlinear adaptive learning control for unknown time‐varying parameters and unknown time‐varying delays

A new adaptive learning control approach is proposed for a class of first‐order nonlinear systems with two unknown time‐varying parameters and an unknown time‐varying delay. By reconstructing the system equation, all unknown time‐varying terms, including the time‐varying delay, are combined into an unknown periodic time‐varying vector, which is estimated by a periodic adaptive mechanism. By constructing a Lyapunov–Krasovskii‐like composite energy function (CEF), we prove the boundedness of all signals and the convergence of the tracking error. The results are extended to two classes of high‐order nonlinear systems with mixed parameters. Three simulation examples are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the control algorithms proposed in this paper. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley and Sons Asia Pte Ltd and Chinese Automatic Control Society     

Delay‐dependent robust stabilization for uncertain singular systems with multiple time‐varying state delays

In this note, the problem of delay‐dependent robust stabilization for singular systems with multiple time‐varying state delays has been investigated, and the problem is solved via state feedback controller in terms of a linear matrix inequality technique. Numerical examples are given to show the validity of the proposed method. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley and Sons Asia Pte Ltd and Chinese Automatic Control Society     

Output feedback control for a class of stochastic high‐order nonlinear systems with time‐varying delays

This paper discusses the problem of output feedback stabilization for a more general class of stochastic high‐order nonlinear systems with time‐varying delays. On the basis of a subtle homogeneous observer and controller construction, and the homogeneous domination approach, the closed‐loop system is globally asymptotically stable in probability, by choosing an appropriate Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional. An example is given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed design procedure. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Global finite‐time stabilization via time‐varying output‐feedback for uncertain nonlinear systems with unknown growth rate

This paper considers the global finite‐time output‐feedback stabilization for a class of uncertain nonlinear systems. Comparing with the existing related literature, two essential obstacles exist: On the one hand, the systems in question allow serious parametric unknowns and serious time variations coupling to the unmeasurable states, which is reflected in that the systems have the unmeasurable states dependent growth with the rate being an unknown constant multiplying a known continuous function of time. On the other hand, the systems possess remarkably inherent nonlinearities, whose growth allows to be not only low‐order but especially high‐order with respect to the unmeasurable states. To effectively cope with these obstacles, we established a time‐varying output‐feedback strategy to achieve the finite‐time stabilization for the systems under investigation. First, a time‐varying state‐feedback controller is constructed by adding an integrator method, and by homogeneous domination approach, a time‐varying reduced‐order observer is designed to precisely rebuild the unmeasurable states. Then, by certainty equivalence principle, a desired time‐varying output‐feedback controller is constructed for the systems. It is shown that, as long as the involved time‐varying gain is chosen fast enough to overtake the serious parametric unknowns and the serious time variations, the output‐feedback controller renders that the closed‐loop system states converge to zero in finite time. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

BIBO stability and stabilization of networked control systems with short time‐varying delays

This paper presents a robust control approach to solve the stability and stabilization problems for networked control systems (NCSs) with short time‐varying delays. A new discrete‐time linear uncertain system model is proposed to describe the NCS, and the uncertainty of the network‐induced delay is transformed into the uncertainty of the system matrix. Based on the obtained uncertain system model, a sufficient BIBO stability condition for the closed‐loop NCS is derived by applying the small gain theorem. The obtained stability condition establishes a quantitative relation between the BIBO stability of the closed‐loop NCS and two delay parameters, namely, the delay upper bound and the delay variation range bound. Moreover, design procedures for the state feedback stabilizing controllers are also presented. An illustrative example is provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Output feedback regulation of upper triangular nonlinear systems with uncertain time‐varying delays in states and input

In this paper, an output feedback controller is studied to regulate a class of upper triangular nonlinear systems with uncertain time‐varying delays. The key features of our considered system are that there are uncertain time‐varying delays in both states and input and the high‐order nonlinearity is in a more relaxed form over the previous results. Theoretical analysis and numerical example are presented to show the benefits of our controller. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Smooth output feedback stabilization for a class of nonlinear systems with time‐varying powers

This paper investigates the global asymptotic stabilization problem for a class of nonlinear systems with time‐varying powers. First, adding a power integrator technique is revamped to design a smooth state feedback controller, which is implementable with only upper and lower bounds of the time‐varying powers. When the system state is not fully available and the time‐varying power is exactly known, a smooth output feedback controller constituted by a state feedback and a nonlinear state observer is constructed to globally stabilize the system. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Stability criteria for uncertain stochastic dynamic systems with time‐varying delays

In this paper, the problem of delay‐dependent stability for uncertain stochastic dynamic systems with time‐varying delay is considered. Based on the Lyapunov stability theory, improved delay‐dependent stability criteria for the system are established in terms of linear matrix inequalities. Three numerical examples are given to show the effectiveness of the proposed method. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Finite‐time output feedback stabilization of nonlinear high‐order feedforward systems

This paper considers the global finite‐time output feedback stabilization of a class of nonlinear high‐order feedforward systems. By using the homogeneous domination method together with adding a power integrator method and overcoming several troublesome obstacles in the design and analysis, a global finite‐time output feedback controller with reduced‐order observer is recursively designed to globally finite‐time stabilize nonlinear high‐order feedforward systems. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Robust stability of nonlinear time‐delay systems with interval time‐varying delay

This paper deals with the problem of obtaining delay‐dependent stability conditions and L₂‐gain analysis for a class of nonlinear time‐delay systems with norm‐bounded and possibly time‐varying uncertainties. No restrictions on the derivative of the time‐varying delay are imposed, though lower and upper bounds of the delay interval are assumed to be known. A Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional approach is proposed to derive novel delay‐dependent stability conditions which are expressed in terms of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). To reduce conservatism, the work exploits the idea of splitting the delay interval in multiple regions, so that specific conditions can be imposed to a unique functional in the different regions. This improves the computed bounds for certain delay‐dependent integral terms, providing less conservative LMI conditions. Examples are provided to demonstrate the reduced conservatism with respect to the available results in the literature. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Razumikhin‐type approach on state feedback of stochastic high‐order nonlinear systems with time‐varying delay

The Razumikhin‐type approach is introduced to solve the state feedback stabilization problem for a class of stochastic high‐order nonlinear systems with time‐varying delay. Based on the general Razumikhin‐type theorem on stochastic systems established in our paper and backstepping design method, a state feedback controller is constructed to ensure the origin of closed‐loop system is globally asymptotically stable in probability. Our methodology enables us to completely remove the limitations on the derivative of delay, which is the common assumption of stochastic high‐order nonlinear systems with time‐varying delay. The efficiency of the state feedback controller is demonstrated by simulation examples. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Practical time‐varying formation tracking for high‐order nonlinear multiagent systems with multiple leaders based on the distributed disturbance observer

Practical time‐varying formation tracking analysis and design problems for high‐order nonlinear multiagent systems with directed interaction topologies are investigated by using the distributed disturbance observer, where the time‐varying formation tracking error can be controlled within an arbitrarily small bound. Different from the previous work, there exists a predefined time‐varying formation formed by the states of the followers and the formation tracks the convex combination of the states of the leaders with unknown control inputs. Besides, the leaders can be multiple, and the dynamics of each follower has heterogeneous nonlinearity and disturbance. First, a distributed disturbance observer‐based practical time‐varying formation tracking protocol is constructed using neighboring relative information, where only a part of the followers, which are named as well‐informed ones, are required to obtain the information of the multiple leaders. The proposed protocol can process the heterogeneous nonlinearity, the disturbance of each follower, and the unknown control inputs of the leaders simultaneously. Then, an algorithm with 2 steps is presented to design the practical time‐varying formation tracking protocol by solving an algebraic Riccati equation and an algebraic equation, where the time‐varying formation tracking feasibility condition is introduced. Moreover, the stability of the closed‐loop multiagent system under the proposed protocol is proved by using the properties of the Laplacian matrix and the Lyapunov stability theory. Finally, a numerical simulation example is provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the obtained theoretical results.     

Compensation of time‐varying input delay for discrete‐time nonlinear systems

We consider general discrete‐time nonlinear systems (of arbitrary nonlinear growth) with time‐varying input delays and design an explicit predictor feedback controller to compensate the input delay. Such results have been achieved in continuous time, but only under the restriction that the delay rate is bounded by unity, which ensures that the input signal flow does not get reversed, namely, that old inputs are not felt multiple times by the plant (because on such subsequent occasions, the control input acts as a disturbance). For discrete‐time systems, an analogous restriction would be that the input delay is non‐increasing. In this work, we do not impose such a restriction. We provide a design and a global stability analysis that allow the input delay to be arbitrary (containing intervals of increase, decrease, or stagnation) over an arbitrarily long finite period of time. Unlike in the continuous‐time case, the predictor feedback law in the discrete‐time case is explicit. We specialize the result to linear time‐invariant systems and provide an explicit estimate of the exponential decay rate. Carefully constructed examples are provided to illustrate the design and analytical challenges. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Finite‐time stabilization for a class of nonlinear systems with time‐varying delay

This paper investigates the finite‐time stabilization problem for a class of nonlinear systems with time‐varying delay. Under suitable assumptions, a new state feedback control law is designed by using the adding a power integrator technique. By constructing an appropriate Lyapunov‐Krasovskii functional, it is shown that the corresponding closed‐loop system is finite‐time stable. Two simulation examples are given to verify the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.     

Multidimensional Taylor network adaptive control for MIMO time‐varying uncertain nonlinear systems with noises

In this paper, an adaptive control approach based on the multidimensional Taylor network (MTN) is proposed here for the real‐time tracking control of multiple‐input–multiple‐output (MIMO) time‐varying uncertain nonlinear systems with noises. Two MTNs are used to formulate the optimum control and adaptive filtering approaches. The feed‐forward MTN controller (MTNC) is developed to realize the precise tracking control. The closed‐loop errors between the filtered outputs and expected values are directly chosen as the MTNC's inputs. A valid initial value selection scheme for the weights of the MTNC, which can ensure the initial stability of adaptive process, is introduced. The proposed MTNC can update its weights online according to errors caused by system's uncertain factors, based on stable learning rate. The resilient backpropagation algorithm and the adaptive variable step size algorithm via linear reinforcement are utilized to update the MTNC's weights. The MTN filter (MTNF) is developed to eliminate measurement noises and other stochastic factors. The proposed adaptive MTN filtering system possesses the distinctive properties of the Lyapunov theory–based adaptive filtering system and MTN. Lyapunov function of the filtering errors between the measured values and MTNF's outputs is defined. By properly choosing the weights update law in the Lyapunov sense, the MTNF's outputs can asymptotically converge to the desired signals. The design is independent of the stochastic properties of the input disturbances. Simulation of the MTN‐based control is conducted to test the effectiveness of the presented results.     

A unified approach to finite‐time stabilization of high‐order nonlinear systems with and without an output constraint

This paper considers the problem of state feedback finite‐time stabilization for a class of high‐order nonlinear systems with an output constraint. By proposing a novel tan‐type barrier Lyapunov function combined with manipulating sign functions, the technique of adding a power integrator is skillfully revamped to develop a systematic approach that guides us to construct a state feedback finite‐time stabilizer for high‐order nonlinear systems while preventing the violation of a prespecified output constraint during operation. The proposed approach is a unified tool in the sense that it can provide a finite‐time stabilizer design even when the constraint is infinite, or equivalently, there is no need for a constraint. A simple example is presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed strategy.     

Delay‐dependent passivity and passification for uncertain Markovian jump systems with time‐varying delays

This paper deals with the problems of passivity analysis and passivity‐based controller design for Markovian jump systems with both time‐varying delays and norm‐bounded parametric uncertainties. Firstly, new delay‐dependent conditions for the considered system to be passive are obtained by using a mode‐dependent Lyapunov functional and by introducing some slack variables. These conditions are expressed by means of LMIs that are easy to check. It is shown through a numerical example that the obtained passivity conditions are less conservative than the existing ones in the literature. Secondly, the passification problem is investigated. On the basis of the obtained passivity conditions, dynamic output‐feedback controllers are designed, which ensure that the resulting closed‐loop system is passive. The effectiveness of the proposed design method is demonstrated by a numerical example. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Adaptive tracking for MIMO nonlinear systems with Unknown fast time‐varying parameters

In this paper, we consider a class of MIMO nonlinear systems with fast time‐varying parametric uncertainties. First, the tracking problem of general nonlinearly time‐varyingly parameterized systems is solved. Then, a Lyapunov‐based singularity free adaptive controller is proposed for the considered system. Specifically, an estimation approach with a proportional plus integral adaptation scheme is utilized to update the estimations of the unknown parameters under a mild assumption that the signs of the leading minors of the input gain matrix are known. The asymptotic stability is achieved with full state feedback. Furthermore, we design an output feedback controller by utilizing a standard high‐gain observer and achieve uniformly ultimately bounded convergence. Simulation examples illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed methods.