Adaptive quantized tracking control for a class of uncertain nonlinear systems with guaranteed transient performance

In this paper, an adaptive quantized control method with guaranteed transient performance is presented for a class of uncertain nonlinear systems. By introducing the Nussbaum function technique, the difficulty caused by quantization is handled and a novel adaptive control scheme is designed. In comparing with the existing adaptive control scheme, the key advantages of the proposed control scheme are that the controller needs no information about the parameters of the quantizer and the stability of the closed-loop system and the transient performance are independent of the coarseness of the quantizer. Based on Lyapunov stability theory and Barbalat’s Lemma, it is proven that all the signals in the resulting closed-loop system are bounded and the tracking error converges to zero asymptotically with the prescribed performance bound at all times. Simulation results are presented to verify the effectiveness of the proposed control method.     

Optimal tracking performance for networked control systems with quantization

This paper investigates the optimal tracking performance of the multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) discrete-time networked control systems (NCSs) considering the quantization of communication channel. The tracking performance is adopted for the H₂ square error criterion. The optimal tracking performance expression is obtained by using the co-prime factorization, the partial factorization, the inner–outer factorization and the spectral decomposition methods. Moreover, the paper also includes the exploration of the optimal tracking performance with input power constraint. The obtained results have demonstrated that the optimal tracking performance is influenced by the non-minimum phase zeros, unstable poles and their directions, the reference signal and the quantization interval. Moreover the theoretical results have also been proven using a number of different examples.     

Predictor-based optimal robust guaranteed cost control for uncertain nonlinear systems with completely tracking errors constraint

In this paper, a novel composite controller is proposed to achieve the prescribed performance of completely tracking errors for a class of uncertain nonlinear systems. The proposed controller contains a feedforward controller and a feedback controller. The feedforward controller is constructed by incorporating the prescribed performance function (PPF) and a state predictor into the neural dynamic surface approach to guarantee the transient and steady-state responses of completely tracking errors within prescribed boundaries. Different from the traditional adaptive laws which are commonly updated by the system tracking error, the state predictor uses the prediction error to update the neural network (NN) weights such that a smooth and fast approximation for the unknown nonlinearity can be obtained without incurring high-frequency oscillations. Since the uncertainties existing in the system may influence the prescribed performance of tracking error and the estimation accuracy of NN, an optimal robust guaranteed cost control (ORGCC) is designed as the feedback controller to make the closed-loop system robustly stable and further guarantee that the system cost function is not more than a specified upper bound. The stabilities of the whole closed-loop control system is certified by the Lyapunov theory. Simulation and experimental results based on a servomechanism are conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Flatness-based adaptive sliding mode tracking control for a quadrotor with disturbances

In this paper, a flatness-based adaptive sliding mode control strategy is presented to solve the trajectory tracking problem of a quadrotor. According to the differential flatness theory, the typical under-actuated quadrotor dynamics is transformed into a fully-actuated one. Based on this model, backstepping sliding mode controllers are designed to solve the trajectory tracking problem. To improve the robustness to disturbances, extended state observers are applied as a feedforward compensation of disturbances. Moreover, considering the high-order dynamics and possible instability caused by large observer gains, the adaptive method is applied to compensate for the estimation error. The effectiveness of the proposed control scheme is verified in simulations.     

Stabilization of switched linear singular systems with state reset

This paper investigates the stability and stabilization of switched linear singular systems with state reset at switching instants. Based on the dynamics decomposition of singular subsystems, a sufficient stability condition for the system with the given state reset is obtained. Then, the stabilization problem by state reset is investigated and an algorithm for computing the reset matrices is presented. The obtained results extend some previous works on both singular switched systems and reset control for normal switched systems. Finally, a numerical example is presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.     

Distributed adaptive output-feedback tracking control of non-affine multi-agent systems with prescribed performance

This paper addresses the distributed adaptive output-feedback tracking control problem of uncertain multi-agent systems in non-affine pure-feedback form under a directed communication topology. Since the control input is implicit for each non-affine agent, we introduce an auxiliary first-order dynamics to circumvent the difficulty in control protocol design and avoid the algebraic loop problem in control inputs and the unknown control gain problem. A decentralized input-driven observer is applied to reconstruct state information of each agent, which makes the design and synthesis extremely simplified. Based on the dynamic surface control technique and neural network approximators, a distributed output-feedback control protocol with prescribed tracking performance is derived. Compared with the existing results, the restrictive assumptions on the partial derivative of non-affine functions are removed. Moreover, it is proved that the output tracking errors always stay in a prescribed performance bound. The simulation results are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Robust adaptive visual tracking control for uncertain robotic systems with unknown dead-zone inputs

This paper is concerned with the image-based visual servoing (IBVS) control for uncalibrated camera-robot system with unknown dead-zone constraint, where the uncertain kinematics and dynamics are also considered. The control implementation is achieved by constructing a smooth inverse model for dead-zone-input to eliminate the nonlinear effect resulting from the actuator constraint. A novel adaptive algorithm, which does not require a priori knowledge of the parameter intervals of dead-zone model, is proposed to update the parameter values online, and the dead-zone slopes are not required the same. Furthermore, to accommodate the uncertainties of uncalibrated camera-robot system, adaptation laws are developed to estimate the uncertain parameters, simultaneously avoiding singularity of the image Jacobian matrix. With the full consideration of unknown dead-zone constraint and system uncertainties, an adaptive robust visual tracking control scheme together with dead-zone compensation is subsequently established such that the image tracking error converges to the origin. Based on a 3-DOF manipulator, simulations are conducted to verify the tracking performance of the proposed controller.     

Data-driven optimal tracking control for discrete-time systems with delays using adaptive dynamic programming

In this paper, the data-driven adaptive dynamic programming (ADP) algorithm is proposed to deal with the optimal tracking problem for the general discrete-time (DT) systems with delays for the first time. The model-free ADP algorithm is presented by using only the system’s input, output and the reference trajectory of the finite steps of historical data. First, the augmented state equation is constructed based on the time-delay system and the reference system. Second, a novel data-driven state equation is derived by virtue of the history data composed of input, output and reference trajectory, which is considered as a state estimator.Then, a novel data-driven Bellman equation for the linear quadratic tracking (LQT) problem with delays is deduced. Finally, the data-driven ADP algorithm is designed to solve the LQT problem with delays and does not require any system dynamics. The simulation result demonstrates the validity of the proposed data-driven ADP algorithm in this paper for the LQT problem with delays.     

Distributed adaptive event-triggered protocol for tracking control of leader-following multi-agent systems

A novel adaptive event-triggered control protocol is developed to investigate the tracking control problem of multi-agent systems with general linear dynamics. By introducing the event-triggered control strategy, each agent can decide when to transfer its state to its neighbors at its own triggering instants, which can greatly reduce communication burden of agents. It is shown that the “Zeno phenomenon” does not occur by verifying that there exists a positive lower bound on the inter-event time intervals of agents under the proposed adaptive event-triggered control algorithm. Finally, an example is provided to testify the effectiveness of the obtained theoretical results.     

Online adaptive policy iteration based fault-tolerant control algorithm for continuous-time nonlinear tracking systems with actuator failures

In this paper, a novel tracking control scheme for continuous-time nonlinear affine systems with actuator faults is proposed by using a policy iteration (PI) based adaptive control algorithm. According to the controlled system and desired reference trajectory, a novel augmented tracking system is constructed and the tracking control problem is converted to the stabilizing issue of the corresponding error dynamic system. PI algorithm, generally used in optimal control and intelligence technique fields, is an important reinforcement learning method to solve the performance function by critic neural network (NN) approximation, which satisfies the Lyapunov equation. For the augmented tracking error system with actuator faults, an online PI based fault-tolerant control law is proposed, where a new tuning law of the adaptive parameter is designed to tolerate four common kinds of actuator faults. The stability of the tracking error dynamic with actuator faults is guaranteed by using Lyapunov theory, and the tracking errors satisfy uniformly bounded as the adaptive parameters get converged. Finally, the designed fault-tolerant feedback control algorithm for nonlinear tracking system with actuator faults is applied in two cases to track the desired reference trajectory, and the simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness and applicability of the proposed method.     

Decentralized adaptive tracking quantized control for interconnected pure feedback time delay nonlinear systems

This paper focuses on the problem of adaptive tracking quantized control for a class of interconnected pure feedback time delay nonlinear systems. To satisfy the requirement of prescribed performance on the output tracking error, a novel asymmetric tangent barrier Lyapunov function is developed. The decentralized adaptive controller is designed via backstepping method. To deal with the uncertain interconnected nonlinear functions, we design a new virtual control input in the first step. Instead of estimating the bound of each unknown function, we use the adaptive method to estimate the bound of the composite function which is composed of the unknown functions. Thus the over parameterization problem is avoided. It is proved that the output of each subsystem satisfies the prescribed performance requirement and other state variables are bounded. Finally, the simulations are performed and the results verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Error-driven nonlinear feedback-based fuzzy adaptive output dynamic surface control for nonlinear systems with partially constrained tracking errors

In this paper, a novel error-driven nonlinear feedback technique is designed for partially constrained errors fuzzy adaptive observer-based dynamic surface control of a class of multiple-input-multiple-output nonlinear systems in the presence of uncertainties and interconnections. There is no requirements that the states are available for the controller design by constructing fuzzy adaptive observer, which can online identify the unmeasurable states using available output information only. By transforming partial tracking errors into new error variables, partially constrained tracking errors can be guaranteed to be confined in pre-specified performance regions. The feature of the error-driven nonlinear feedback technique is that the feedback gain self-adjusts with varying tracking errors, which prevents high-gain chattering with large errors and guarantees disturbance attenuation with small errors. Based on a new non-quadratic Lyapunov function, it is proved that the signals in the resulted closed-loop system are kept bounded. Simulation and comparative results are given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Spacecraft output feedback attitude control based on extended state observer and adaptive dynamic programming

This paper investigates spacecraft output feedback attitude control problem based on extended state observer (ESO) and adaptive dynamic programming (ADP) approach. For the plant described by the unit quaternion, an ESO is first presented in view of the property of the attitude motion, and the norm constraint on the unit quaternion can be satisfied theoretically. The practical convergence proof of the developed ESO is illustrated by change of coordinates. Then, the controller is designed with an involvement of two parts: the basic part and the supplementary part. For the basic part, a proportional-derivative control law is designed. For the supplementary part, an ADP method called action-dependent heuristic dynamic programming (ADHDP) is adopted, which provides a supplementary control action according to the differences between the actual and the desired system signals. Simulation studies validate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.     

A modified adaptive backstepping method for shaft deflection tracking control of magnetically suspended momentum wheel with nonlinear magnetic torque

A modified adaptive backstepping tracking method is proposed to improve the tracking performance of the magnetic bearing system with nonlinear magnetic toque. For a magnetically suspended momentum wheel, two dimensional gyroscopic torque can be produced when the rotor shaft is actively deflected by the active magnetic bearing. High precision rapid tracking control of shaft deflection is desiderated to provide high precision and wide bandwidth outputting torque. The nonlinearity of magnetic bearing is analyzed initially, and the stiffness coefficients of magnetic bearing can be treated as bounded continuous functions with respect to deflection angles. A fuzzy function based adaptive law is proposed to estimate the stiffness coefficients. Combining with a modified backstepping method, the proposed control strategy can deal with the nonlinearity efficiently when the shaft deflects rapidly, and its stability is proved by Lyapunov stability theory. To validate the effectiveness of this method, numerous simulations are performed and the results indicate that this method improves the tracking precision when tracking high frequency reference deflection angles.     

Anti-oscillation and chaos control of the fractional-order brushless DC motor system via adaptive echo state networks

This paper proposes anti-oscillation and chaos control scheme for the fractional-order brushless DC motor system wherein there exist unknown dynamics, immeasurable states and chaotic oscillation. Aimed at immeasurable states, the high-gain observers with fast convergence are presented to obtain the information of system states. To compensate uncertainties existing in the dynamic system, a finite-time echo state network with a weight is proposed to approximate uncertain dynamics while its weight is tuned by a fractional-order adaptive law online. Meanwhile a fractional-order filter is introduced to deal with the repeated derivative of the backstepping. Based on the fractional-order Lyapunov stability criterion, the anti-oscillation and chaos control scheme integrated with a high-gain observer, an echo state network and a filter are proposed by using recursive steps of backstepping. The proposed scheme guarantees the boundedness of all signals of the closed-loop system in the sense of global asymptotic stability, and also suppresses chaotic oscillation. Finally, the effectiveness of our scheme is demonstrated by simulation results.     

Backstepping-based adaptive dynamic programming for missile-target guidance systems with state and input constraints

In this paper, a novel backstepping-based adaptive dynamic programming (ADP) method is developed to solve the problem of intercepting a maneuver target in the presence of full-state and input constraints. To address state constraints, a barrier Lyapunov function is introduced to every backstepping procedure. An auxiliary design system is employed to compensate the input constraints. Then, an adaptive backstepping feedforward control strategy is designed, by which the tracking problem for strict-feedback systems can be reduced to an equivalence optimal regulation problem for affine nonlinear systems. Secondly, an adaptive optimal controller is developed by using ADP technique, in which a critic network is constructed to approximate the solution of the associated Hamilton–Jacobi–Bellman (HJB) equation. Therefore, the whole control scheme consists of an adaptive feedforward controller and an optimal feedback controller. By utilizing Lyapunov's direct method, all signals in the closed-loop system are guaranteed to be uniformly ultimately bounded (UUB). Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed strategy is demonstrated by using a simple nonlinear system and a nonlinear two-dimensional missile-target interception system.     

Adaptive fuzzy asymptotically tracking control of full state constrained nonlinear system based on a novel Nussbaum-type function

This study carries out the problem of adaptive backstepping fuzzy tracking control for a class of full state constrained uncertain nonlinear system with unknown control directions. Based on Nussbaum-type functions and tan-type Barrier Lyapunov functions, a novel adaptive fuzzy tracking controller is proposed to guarantee that the system output tracking error asymptotically converges to zero, while the constraints on the states of system will not be violated during operation. Compared with the existing results, a better convergence effect is obtained for this class of systems. Stability analysis of the proposed closed-loop control system is supported by the Lyapunov stability theory. Finally, a simulation example is presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy.     

Optimal trajectory tracking solution: Fractional order viewpoint

In this paper, a generalized trajectory tracking problem for a closed-loop control system is formulated in the optimal control context. A linear time varying plant is considered to track a closed-loop desired trajectory generated by a given mechanism. The theoretical results are obtained based on the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman theory in which some generalized semiquadratic value functions are employed as the Lagrangian. In addition, we employ a non-integer order integral of Riemann-Liouville type as the cost functional, so that the trajectory tracking process can be evaluated in an extended optimum manner wherein the fractionality plays the main role. By selecting a suitable fractional order of the integral, a satisfactory optimal control system can be deduced in which least concentration on selecting the weighting matrices is needed. To show the effectiveness of the results, some numerical examples illustrate the potentials.