Improved decentralized prescribed performance control for non-affine large-scale systems with uncertain actuator nonlinearity

This work considers a decentralized control problem for non-affine large-scale systems with non-affine functions possibly being discontinuous. A semi-bounded condition for non-affine functions is presented to guarantee the controllability, and the non-affine system is transformed to an equivalent pseudo-affine one based on the mild condition. Different from conventional control schemes on specific actuator nonlinearity, the controller proposed in this paper can deal with a series of actuator nonlinearities such as backlash and deadzone nonlinearity. A time-varying stable manifold involving the tracking error and its high-order derivatives is utilized to handle the high-order dynamics of each subsystem. Besides an improved prescribed performance controller independent of the initial condition is constructed to ensure the finite-time convergence of the error manifold to a predefined region. The boundedness and convergence of the closed-loop system are proved by Lyapunov theory and the counter-evidence method. Two examples are performed to verify the theoretical findings.     

Controller design for discrete-time hybrid linear parameter-varying systems with semi-Markov mode switching

The paper is concerned with the stability and stabilization problems for a family of hybrid linear parameter-varying systems with stochastic mode switching. The switching phenomenon is modeled by a semi-Markov stochastic process which is more generalized than a Markov stochastic process. With the construction of a Lyapunov function that depends on both the parameter variation and operating mode, numerical testable stability and stabilization criteria are established in the sense of σ-error mean square stability with the aid of some mathematical techniques that can eliminate the terms containing products of matrices. To test the effectiveness of the designed stabilizing controller, we apply the developed theoretical results to a numerical example.     

Output feedback stabilization of switching discrete-time linear systems with parameter uncertainties

This paper deals with observer-based control design for a class of switched discrete-time linear systems with parameter uncertainties. The main contribution of the paper is to propose a convenient way based on Finsler’s lemma to enhance the synthesis conditions, expressed in terms of Linear Matrix Inequalities (LMIs). Indeed, this judicious use of Finsler’s lemma provides additional decision variables, which render the LMIs less conservative and more general than all those existing in the literature for the same class of systems. Two numerical examples followed by a Monte Carlo evaluation are proposed to show the superiority of the proposed design technique.     

Distributed event-triggered control co-design for large-scale systems via static output feedback

This work investigates the problem of distributed control for large-scale systems, in which a communication network is available to exchange information. To avoid the unnecessary communication, an event-triggered control (ETC) mechanism is introduced, in which the transmission occurs only when a certain event is triggered. Under the assumption that only the output signal is available, the static output feedback (SOF) is considered in this work. The aim of the co-design is to design an SOF controller and an ETC condition simultaneously such that the overall closed-loop system is stabilized with a certain level of performance. To this end, an event-triggering scheme based on output signals is proposed to determine when the event is triggered. Then the closed-loop system is modeled as a linear perturbed system. The distributed control co-design is formulated as a convex optimization problem with linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) constraints. Finally, a numerical example is presented to show the effectiveness of the proposed design method.     

Stabilizing a class of mixed states for stochastic quantum systems via switching control

The global stabilization of a class of mixed states for finite dimensional stochastic quantum systems with degenerate measurement operator is investigated in this paper. We construct a measurement operator and control Hamiltonian that make the target state one of the system equilibria. Based on the proposed Lyapunov function, a control law is designed following Lyapunov’s method to steer system state to the target mixed state from an initial state in the convergence domain, which is obtained through the analyses of invariant set based on LaSella’s invariance principle. When the initial state isn’t in the convergence domain, a constant control is used to steer the system state so that it enters the convergence domain in finite time. The constant control and the control designed by Lyapunov method compose a switching control strategy, which can steer system state to the target mixed state from any arbitrary state in the state space, i.e., the target mixed state is globally stable under the switching control. The convergence of the switching control is proved based on state sample trajectories. Moreover, the numerical experiments on a three dimensional stochastic quantum system are performed to demonstrate the effectiveness of switching control.     

Network-based control of nonlinear large-scale systems composed of identical subsystems

This paper deals with a control of coupled nonlinear identical systems that admit full exact feedback input-output linearization. The subsystems are linearized using this nonlinear transformation. In the next step, an auxiliary low-dimensional system is derived whose stability implies stability of the original large-scale system. The control law is designed so that the control loops are only local, no information exchange between subsystems is required. Unknown time delay in the feedback are allowed. Two cases are studied: equal time delay for all subsystems or different delay in all subsystems. Results are illustrated by two examples.     

Event-triggered dynamic output feedback tracking control for large-scale interconnected systems with disturbances

This paper is concerned with the event-triggered dynamic output feedback tracking control for large-scale interconnected systems with disturbances. For each node, a novel event-triggered mechanism is driven by local relative output tracking error to determine whether the signal will be transmitted. A two-step optimization is applied for dynamic output feedback controller design which guarantees robust stability of the system with an optimal H_∞ disturbance attenuation level. Finally, a simulation example of master-slave multiple vehicles is given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.     

Distributed MPC-based adaptive control for linear systems with unknown parameters

This paper is concerned with the adaptive control problem for a class of linear discrete-time systems with unknown parameters based on the distributed model predictive control (MPC) method. Instead of using the system state, the state estimate is employed to model the distributed state estimation system. In this way, the system state does not have to be measurable. Furthermore, in order to improve the system performance, both the output error and its estimation are considered. Moreover, a novel Lyapunov functional, comprised of a series of distributed traces of estimation errors and their transposes, has been presented. Then, sufficient conditions are obtained to guarantee the exponential ultimate boundedness of the system as well as the asymptotic stability of the error system by solving a nonlinear programming (NP) problem subject to input constraints. Finally, the simulation examples is given to illustrate the effectiveness and the validity of the proposed technique.     

Model reference adaptive control for switched linear systems using switched multiple models control strategy

In this paper, the multiple model strategy is applied to the adaptive control of switched linear systems to improve the transient performance. The solvability of the adaptive stabilization problem of each subsystem is not required. Firstly, the two-layer switching mechanism is designed. The state-dependent switching law with dwell time constraint is designed in the outer-layer switching to guarantee the stability of the switched systems. During the interval of dwell time constraint, the parameter resetting adaptive laws are designed in the inner-layer switching to improve the transient performance. Secondly, the minimum dwell time constraint providing enough time for multiple model adaptive control strategy to work fully and maintaining the stability of the switched systems is found. Finally, the proposed switched multiple model adaptive control strategy guarantees that all the closed-loop system signals remain bounded and the state tracking error converges to zero.     

Barrier Lyapunov function-based decentralized adaptive neural control for uncertain high-order stochastic nonlinear interconnected systems with output constraints

Decentralized adaptive neural backstepping control scheme is developed for uncertain high-order stochastic nonlinear systems with unknown interconnected nonlinearity and output constraints. For the control of high-order nonlinear interconnected systems, it is assumed that nonlinear system functions are unknown. It is for the first time to control stochastic nonlinear high-order systems with output constraints. Firstly, by constructing barrier Lyapunov functions, output constraints are handled. Secondly, at each recursive step, only one adaptive parameter is updated to overcome over-parameterization problems, and RBF neural networks are used to identify unknown nonlinear functions so that the difficulties caused by completely unknown system functions and stochastic disturbances are tackled. Finally, based on the Lyapunov stability method, the decentralized adaptive control scheme via neural networks approximator is proposed, ultimately reducing the number of learning parameters. It is shown that the designed controller can guarantee all the signals of the resulting closed-loop system to be semi-globally uniformly ultimately bounded (SGUUB), and the tracking errors for each subsystem are driven to a small neighborhood of zero. The simulation studies are performed to verify the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy.     

Tracking-protection-recovery switching control for aero-engines

This paper presents a novel tracking-protection-recovery switching strategy to solve the thrust tracking and safety protection multi-objective control problem for the aero-engines. The proposed switching control strategy overcomes the contradiction between the tracking performance and the safety requirement. The design procedure is with larger degree of freedom and less conservatism. The proposed switching controller can be designed in three steps. For the tracking stage, the tracking controller is designed only according to the rapidity requirement for the thrust tracking with less consideration of safety. For the protection stage, the protection controller is activated to limit the protected output in the safety region. Because of the properly designed protection controller, it is unnecessary to switch on the protection controller before the protected output reaches the safety boundary. That reduces conservatism and makes the tracking performance improved. For the recovery stage, the recovery controller, as well as the properly designed resetting law, is utilized to guarantee finite number of switches and the resulting asymptotic tracking. Because of the properly designed switch-off condition for the protection controller, the thrust tracking performance gets improved. The protected output is also successfully limited. Finally, a case study for a two-spool turbofan engine is performed to verify the effectiveness of the proposed scheme. It is also indicated that the proposed tracking-protection-recovery switching strategy can improve both safety performance and the tracking transient performance.     

Mixed order robust adaptive control for general linear time invariant systems

We provide a solution to the adaptive control problem of an unknown linear system of a given derivation order, using a reference model or desired poles defined in a possibly different derivation order and employing continuous adjustment of parameters ruled by possibly another different derivation order. To this purpose, we present an extension for the fractional settings of the Bezout’s lemma and gradient steepest descent adjustment. We analyze both the direct and indirect approaches to adaptive control. We discuss some robustness advantages/disadvantages of the fractional adjustment of parameters in comparison with the integer one and, through simulations, the possibility to define optimal derivation order controllers.     

Observer-based decentralized control of large-scale stochastic high-order feedforward systems with multi time delays

This paper investigates the problem of observer-based decentralized control for a class of large-scale stochastic high-order feedforward systems with multi time delays. By using the homogeneous domination idea and constructing the implementable observer, the decentralized output-feedback controller design scheme is firstly proposed. Then, with the aid of stochastic time delay system stability theory, the globally asymptotically stable in probability of the closed-loop system is verified by selecting an appropriate Lyapunov–Krasoviskii functional. Finally, an example is provided to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed design method.     

Integrated design of switching control and mobile actuator/sensor guidance for a linear diffusion process

This paper is concerned with the exponential stabilization problem for a class of diffusion processes described by a linear parabolic partial differential equation (PDE) using mobile collocated actuators and sensors. Each collocated actuator/sensor pair is capable of moving within the respective spatial domain divided in advance and a mode indicator function is employed to indicate the different modes for all actuator/sensor pairs according to whether each actuator/sensor pair is static or mobile. By utilizing Lyapunov direct method, an integrated design of switching controllers and mobile actuator/sensor guidance laws for the diffusion process is developed such that the resulting closed-loop system is exponentially stable. Finally, numerical simulations are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed design method.     

P-type iterative learning control algorithm for a class of linear singular impulsive systems

This paper is focused on the iterative learning control problem for linear singular impulsive systems. For the purpose of tracking the desired output trajectory, a P-type iterative learning control algorithm is investigated for such system. Based on the fundamental property of singular impulsive systems and the restricted equivalent transformation theory of singular systems, the convergence conditions of the tracking errors for the system are obtained in the sense of λ norm. Finally, the validation of the algorithm is confirmed by a numerical example.     

Sampled-data control of a class of switched nonlinear systems under asynchronous switching

This paper focuses on an output feedback stabilization problem for a class of switched nonlinear systems in non-strict feedback form under asynchronous switching via sampled-data control. Since the output of the considered systems is measurable only at the sampling instants, an observer is designed with a tunable scaling gain to estimate the state, and then a sampled-data controller is constructed with the sampled estimated state. As a distinctive feature, a merging virtual switching signal is introduced to describe the asynchronous switching generated by detecting the activation of the subsystem. By choosing an appropriate Lyapunov function, it is proved that the constructed controller with dwell time constraint can globally stabilize the considered systems under asynchronous switching. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed method is illustrated by two examples.     

Iterative learning control for linear delay systems with deterministic and random impulses

This paper investigates convergence of iterative learning control for linear delay systems with deterministic and random impulses by virtute of the representation of solutions involving a concept of delayed exponential matrix. We address linear delay systems with deterministic impulses by designing a standard P-type learning law via rigorous mathematical analysis. Next, we extend to consider the tracking problem for delay systems with random impulses under randomly varying length circumstances by designing two modified learning laws. We present sufficient conditions for both deterministic and random impulse cases to guarantee the zero-error convergence of tracking error in the sense of Lebesgue-p norm and the expectation of Lebesgue-p norm of stochastic variable, respectively. Finally, numerical examples are given to verify the theoretical results.     

Fault-tolerant control for a class of linear interconnected hyperbolic systems by boundary feedback

This paper considers a fault-tolerant control problem for a class of interconnected linear hyperbolic partial differential equation systems. Both subsystem faults and coupling faults are considered. Firstly, the well-posedness of the faulty system is analyzed by using semigroup theory. Secondly, for the fault-free case, a stabilizing boundary feedback control based on small-gain theorem is proposed. Consequently, in the presence of faults, fault recoverability conditions are established that maintain the stability of the faulty systems. The fault-tolerant control strategies are also provided. A heat exchanger example is taken to illustrate the effectiveness and practicality of the proposed methods.     

Subspace predictive control with the data-driven event-triggered law for linear time-invariant systems

In this paper, a subspace predictive control (SPC) method with a novel data-driven event-triggered law is proposed for linear time-invariant systems with unknown model parameters. Based on the conventional SPC method, the event-triggered law is introduced to substitute the typical receding horizon optimization, which reduces the data computation load of the traditional SPC method. The key parameters of the event-triggered law are derived by the Q-learning method via system data and the input-to-state stability of the system can be ensured with the designed event-triggered law. The simulation results illustrate the effect and merits of the proposed method with comparisons.     

Bounded average consensus for multi-agent systems with switching topologies by event-triggered persistent dwell time control

This paper is concerned with the consensus of multi-agent systems (MASs) with switching topologies. A norm-bounded event-trigger is designed where non-global information of the communication graph is involved. By directly employing the asynchronous event-triggered neighbor state information, a distributed persistent dwell time (PDT) based predictor-like consensus protocol is proposed. By the proposed scheme, the dynamics of local subsystems are allowed to be unstable during fast switching time intervals as well as the jump time instants, meanwhile, the bounded average consensus of overall MASs can be achieved. In addition, the Zeno-phenomena is naturally excluded. Numerical example is provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.