Consensus tracking control for nonlinear multiagent systems with asymmetric state constraints and input delays

In this paper, the consensus tracking problem is studied for a group of nonlinear heterogeneous multiagent systems with asymmetric state constraints and input delays. Different from the existing works, both input delays and asymmetric state constraints are assumed to be nonuniform and time-varying. By introducing a nonlinear mapping to handle the problem caused by state constraints, not only the feasibility condition is removed, but also the restriction on the constraint boundary functions is relaxed. The time-varying input delays are compensated by developing an auxiliary system. Furthermore, by utilizing the dynamic surface control method, neural network technology and the designed finite-time observer, the distributed adaptive control scheme is developed, which can achieve the synchronization between the followers’ output and the leader without the violation of full-state constraints. Finally, a numerical simulation is provided to verify the effectiveness of the proposed control protocol.     

Fixed-time neuroadaptive practical tracking control based on extended state/disturbance observer for a QUAV with external disturbances and time-varying parameters

This paper investigates the fixed-time neural network adaptive (FNNA) tracking control of a quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicle (QUAV) to achieve flight safety and high efficiency. By combining radial basis function neural network (RBFNN) with fixed time adaptive sliding mode algorithm, a novel radial basis function neural network adaptive law is proposed. In addition, an extended state/disturbance observer (ESDO) is proposed to solve the problem of unmeasurable state and external interference, which can obtain reliable state feedback and interference input. Unlike most other ESO applications, this paper does not set the uncertainty model and external disturbances as total disturbances. Instead, the external disturbances are observed by extending the states and the observed states are fed back to the controller to cancel the disturbances. In view of the time-varying resistance coefficient and inertia torque in the QUAV model, the neural network is introduced so that the controller does not need to consider these nonlinear uncertainties. Finally, a numerical example is given to verify the effectiveness of the coupled non-simplified QUAV model.     

Adaptive prescribed performance control of nonlinear asymmetric input saturated systems with application to AUVs

In this paper, the adaptive prescribed performance tracking control of nonlinear asymmetric input saturated systems in strict-feedback form is addressed under the consideration of model uncertainties and external disturbances. A radial basis function neural network (RBF-NN) is utilized to handle the model uncertainties. By prescribed performance functions, the transient performance of the system can be guaranteed. The continuous Gaussian error function is represented as an approximation of asymmetric saturation nonlinearity such that the backstepping technique can be leveraged in the control design. Based on the Lyapunov synthesis, residual function approximation inaccuracies and external disturbances are compensated by constructed adaptive control laws. As a consequence, all the signals in the closed-loop system are uniformly ultimately bounded and the tracking errors bounded by prescribed functions converge to a small neighbourhood of zero. The proposed method is applied to the autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) with extensive simulation results demonstrating the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Event-triggered adaptive control of multi-agent systems with saturated input and partial state constraints

In this paper, we study the consensus tracking control problem of a class of strict-feedback multi-agent systems (MASs) with uncertain nonlinear dynamics, input saturation, output and partial state constraints (PSCs) which are assumed to be time-varying. An adaptive distributed control scheme is proposed for consensus achievement via output feedback and event-triggered strategy in directed networks containing a spanning tree. To handle saturated control inputs, a linear form of the control input is adopted by transforming the saturation function. The radial basis function neural network (RBFNN) is applied to approximate the uncertain nonlinear dynamics. Since the system outputs are the only available data, a high-gain adaptive observer based on RBFNN is constructed to estimate the unmeasurable states. To ensure that the constraints of system outputs and partial states are never violated, a barrier Lyapunov function (BLF) with time-varying boundary function is constructed. Event-triggered control (ETC) strategy is applied to save communication resources. By using backstepping design method, the proposed distributed controller can guarantee the boundedness of all system signals, consensus tracking with a bounded error and avoidance of Zeno behavior. Finally, the correctness of the theoretical results is verified by computer simulation.     

Adaptive distributed tracking control for non-affine multi-agent systems with state constraints and dead-zone input

In this paper, an adaptive distributed control protocol is proposed for non-affine multi-agent system with nonlinear dead-zone input and state constraints under the condition of directed topology. In order to overcome the difficulties caused by non-affine terms in the system, the nonlinear dynamics system is transformed. Then, the neural network technology is introduced to approximate the unknown non-affine terms for the obtained system. State constraints and dead-zone input are common system problems. In order to solve these problems, the barrier Lyapunov function is introduced in this paper. According to the barrier Lyapunov function and backstepping method, an adaptive distributed controller is designed, so that state variables do not violate constraint bounds and the system is not affected by dead-zone input. By Lyapunov stability theory, it is proved that the signals of each follower are cooperative semi-global uniform ultimate boundedness (CSUUB), and the outputs of the followers track the output of the leader. Simulation example is given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Adaptive output-feedback control for nonlinear time-delay systems in pure-feedback form

The main contribution of this paper is to develop an adaptive output-feedback control approach for a class of uncertain nonlinear systems with unknown time-varying delays in the pure-feedback form. Both the non-affine nonlinear functions and the unknown time-varying delayed functions related to all state variables are considered. These conditions make the controller design difficult and challenging because the output-feedback controller should be designed using only the output information. In order to overcome these conditions, we design an observer-based adaptive dynamic surface controller where the time-delay effects are compensated by using appropriate Lyapunov–Krasovskii functionals and the function approximation technique using neural networks. A first-order filter is added to the control input to avoid the algebraic loop problem caused by the non-affine structure. It is proved that all the signals in the closed-loop system are semi-globally uniformly bounded and the tracking error converges to an adjustable neighborhood of the origin.     

Adaptive neural network control for flexible telerobotic systems with communication constraints

This paper investigates the synchronous control problem for a class of flexible telerobotic systems subject to system uncertainties and communication constraints. In view of the asymmetric time-varying communication delays, an adaptive time-delay estimator is designed to reduce the impacts of delays on the system. Moreover, by combining the neural networks and parameter adaptive method, the uncertainties of system dynamics are estimated and compensated. Based on these efforts, a new adaptive compensation control protocol is proposed. Additionally, input quantization in network control induced chattering phenomenon and unknown parameters is also dealt with by the adaptive compensation method. A useful characteristic of this paper is that the “complexity explosion” problem caused by the backstepping technique is circumvented effectively. Finally, sufficient conditions are derived for the synchronous control of the master-slave flexible telerobotic system under Lyapunov stability theory. A numerical example of flexible-joint robotic system is provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed control schemes.     

Fraction dynamic-surface-based adaptive neural finite-time control for stochastic nonlinear systems subject to unknown control directions,time-varying input delay and state delay

In this paper, an adaptive neural finite-time tracking control is studied for a category of stochastic nonlinearly parameterized systems with multiple unknown control directions, time-varying input delay, and time-varying state delay. To this end, a novel criterion of semi-globally finite-time stability in probability (SGFSP) is proposed, in the sense of Lyapunov, for stochastic nonlinear systems with multiple unknown control directions. Secondly, a novel auxiliary system with finite-time convergence is presented to cope with the time-varying input delay, the appropriate Lyapunov Krasovskii functionals are utilized to compensate for the time-varying state delay, Nussbaum functions are exploited to identify multiple unknown control directions, and the neural networks (NNs) are applied to approximate the unknown functions of nonlinear parameters. Thirdly, the fraction dynamic surface control (FDSC) technique is embedded in the process of designing the controller, which not only the “explosion of complexity” problems are successfully avoided in traditional backstepping methods but also the command filter convergence can be obtained within a finite time to lead greatly improved for the response speed of command filter. Meanwhile, the error compensation mechanism is established to eliminate the errors of the command filter. Then, based on the proposed novel criterion, all closed-loop signals of the considered systems are SGPFS under the designed controller, and the tracking error can drive to a small neighborhood of the origin in a finite time. In the end, three simulation examples are applied to demonstrate the validity of the control method.     

Neural networks-based adaptive output feedback control for a class of uncertain nonlinear systems with input delay and disturbances

This paper focuses on the problem of adaptive output feedback control for a class of uncertain nonlinear systems with input delay and disturbances. Radial basis function neural networks (NNs) are employed to approximate the unknown functions and an NN observer is constructed to estimate the unmeasurable system states. Moreover, an auxiliary system is introduced to compensate for the effect of input delay. With the aid of the backstepping technique and Lyapunov stability theorem, an adaptive NN output feedback controller is designed which can guarantee the boundedness of all the signals in the closed-loop systems. Finally, a simulation example is given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Fast fixed-time vertical plane motion control of autonomous underwater gliders in shallow water

In this paper, a fast fixed-time vertical plane motion controller is proposed for autonomous underwater gliders (AUGs) gliding in shallow water. The influence of speed-sensorless conditions, model uncertainties, unknown time-varying external disturbances, input saturations, and state delay are taken into account. To improve control performance, a fast fixed-time stable system is first presented. Based on the system, an adaptive extended state observer (ESO) is developed for estimating speed, model uncertainties, and external disturbances. A fast fixed-time controller is designed for improving the gliding efficiency and reducing the risk of hitting the ocean floor. Moreover, an input saturation auxiliary system and an advance compensation method are presented to cope with input saturations and state delay. According to Lyapunov theory, it is proved that the AUG states can converge into a small neighborhood within a fixed time. Finally, simulation results demonstrate the rapidity and effectiveness of the designed control method.     

Fault-tolerant practical tracking control for uncertain robotic system with general reference trajectory and output constraint

This paper is devoted to the fault-tolerant tracking control for a class of uncertain robotic systems under time-varying output constraints. Notably, both actuator fault and the disturbances are present while all the dynamic matrices are not necessarily to be parameterized by unknown parameters or have known nominal parts, and moreover, the reference trajectories as well as the output constraints functions are not necessarily twice continuously differentiable without any time derivatives of them being available for feedback. These remarkable characteristics greatly relax the corresponding assumptions of the related literature and in turn to bring the ineffectiveness of the traditional schemes on this topic. For this, a powerful adaptive control methodology is established by incorporating adaptive dynamic compensation technique into the backstepping framework based on Barrier Lyapunov functions. Then, an adaptive state feedback controller with the smart choices of adaptive law and virtual controls is designed which guarantees that all the states of the closed-loop system are bounded and the system output practically tracks the reference trajectory while not violates the output constraints.     

Neuroadaptive deferred full-state constraints control without feasibility conditions for uncertain nonlinear EASSs

This article studies the neuroadaptive full-state constraints control problem for a class of electromagnetic active suspension systems (EASSs). First, the original constraint system with arbitrary initial values is transformed into a new constraint system with zero initial values by using the shift function method. Then, a new kind of cotangent-type nonlinear state-dependent transition function is constructed to solve the asymmetric time-varying full-state constraints control problem, which eliminates the limitation that the virtual controller needs to satisfy the feasibility conditions in the previous full-state constraints control based on Barrier Lyapunov Function (BLF) and Integral BLF. Furthermore, the neural networks (NNs) are used as nonlinear function approximators to deal with the unknown nonlinear dynamics of EASSs, a neuroadaptive full-state constraints control design method is proposed under the Backstepping recursive design framework. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by a simulation of EASSs with road disturbances.     

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.     

Adaptive fuzzy output feedback controller design for a HAGC system with input saturation and output error constraints

The comprehensive effect of external disturbance, measurement delay, unmeasurable states and input saturation makes the difficulties and challenges for a HAGC system. In this paper, an adaptive fuzzy output feedback control scheme is designed for a HAGC system under the simultaneous consideration of those factors. At the first place, by state transformation technique, the dynamic model of a HAGC system is simply expressed as a strict feedback form, where measurement delay is converted into input delay. Then, an auxiliary system is employed to compensate for the effect of input delay. Furthermore, an asymmetric barrier Lyapunov function (BLF) is constructed to ensure the output error constraint requirement of thickness error and the fuzzy observer is established to solve unmeasurable states, unknown nonlinear functions at the same time. With the aid of backstepping method, adaptive fuzzy controller is developed to assure that the closed-loop system is semi-globally boundedness and the output error of thickness error doesn’t violate its constraint. At the end, compared simulations are carried out to verify the efficiency of the proposed control scheme.     

An improved design strategy for approximation-based adaptive event-triggered tracking of a class of uncertain nonlinear systems

This paper presents an improved adaptive design strategy for neural-network-based event-triggered tracking of uncertain strict-feedback nonlinear systems. An adaptive tracking scheme based on state variables transmitted from the sensor-to-controller channel is designed via only single neural network function approximator, regardless of unknown nonlinearities unmatched in the control input. Contrary to the existing multiple-function-approximators-based event-triggered backstepping control results with multiple triggering conditions dependent on all error surfaces, the proposed scheme only requires one triggering condition using a tracking error and thus can overcome the problem of the existing results that all virtual controllers with multiple function approximators should be computed in the sensor part. This leads to achieve the structural simplicity of the proposed event-triggered tracker in the presence of unmatched and unknown nonlinearities. Using the impulsive system approach and the error transformation technique, it is shown that all the signals of the closed-loop system are bounded and the tracking error is bounded within pre-designable time-varying bounds in the Lyapunov sense.     

Distributed control for output-constrained nonlinear multi-agent systems with completely unknown non-identical control directions

This paper studies the consensus problem for a class of nonlinear multi-agent systems with asymmetric time-varying output constraints and completely unknown non-identical control directions. Firstly, in order to deal with the problem of asymmetric time-varying output constraints, the original output-constrained multi-agent systems are transformed into new unconstrained multi-agent systems by constructing the state transformation for each agent. Secondly, the emergence of multiple Nussbaum-type function terms is avoided by introducing novel sliding-mode-esque auxiliary variables and consensus estimate variables, which allows the control directions to be completely unknown non-identical. Thirdly, a novel control strategy is proposed by combining novel variables with state transformation method for the first time, which makes the design of distributed consensus protocol more concise. Through Lyapunov stability analysis, the proposed distributed protocol ensures that the output constraints are never violated and the consensus can be achieved asymptotically. Finally, a practical simulation example is given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed distributed consensus protocol.     

Optimization-based adaptive neural sliding mode control for nonlinear systems with fast and accurate response under state and input constraints

The high-performance control requires the system to be stable, fast and accurate simultaneously. However, various systems (e.g., motors, industrial robots) generally face technical challenges such as nonlinearities, uncertainties, external disturbances and physical constraints, which make it difficult to reach the hardware potential of the systems to track the desired trajectories when satisfying the high-performance control requirements. Therefore, take a two-order nonlinear system for example, an optimization-based adaptive neural sliding mode control based on a two-loop control structure is proposed in this paper, where the outer and inner loops are designed separately to achieve different control requirements. Namely, the outer loop is designed as a model predictive control (MPC)-based optimization problem, which can optimize the desired trajectories to meet the state and input constraints, and maximize the converging speed of transient response as fast as possible, and the inner loop is designed with a recurrent neural network (RNN)-based adaptive neural sliding mode controller, which can guarantee the tracking of the replanned desired trajectories from outer loop as accurate as possible. The stability of the system is guaranteed by Lyapunov theorem, the optimal tracking performance is achieved under nonlinearities, uncertainties, external disturbances and physical constraints, and comparative simulation with a motor system is carried out to verify the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed approach.     

Approximation-based decentralized output-feedback control for uncertain stochastic interconnected nonlinear time-delay systems with input delay and asymmetric input saturation

This paper proposes an adaptive observer-based neural controller for a class of uncertain large-scale stochastic nonlinear systems with actuator delay and time-delay nonlinear interactions, where drift and diffusion terms contain all state variables of their own subsystem. First, a state observer is established for estimating the unmeasured states, and a predictor-like term is utilized to transform the input delayed system into the delay-free system. Second, novel appropriate Lyapunov–Krasovskii functionals are used to compensate the time-delay terms, and neural networks are employed to approximate unknown nonlinear functions. At last, an output-feedback adaptive neural control scheme is constructed by using Lyapunov stability theory and backstepping technique. It is shown that the designed neural controller can ensure that all the signals in the closed-loop system are semi-globally uniformly ultimately bounded (SGUUB) and the tracking error is driven to a small neighborhood of the origin. The simulation results are presented to further show the effectiveness of the proposed approach.     

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.     

Neural network adaptive control design for robot manipulators under velocity constraints

This paper studies the neural adaptive control design for robotic systems with uncertain dynamics under the existence of velocity constraints and input saturation. The control objective is achieved by choosing a control Lyapunov function using joint error variables that are restricted to linear growth and furthermore by introducing a secant type barrier Lyapunov function for constraining the joint rate variables. The former is exploited to bind the forward propagation of the position errors, and the latter is utilized to impose hard bounds on the velocity. Effective input saturation is expressed, and neural networks are employed to tackle the uncertainty problem in the system dynamics. Feasibility conditions are formulated, and the optimal design parameters are obtained by solving the constrained optimization problem. We prove that under the proposed method, semi-global uniform ultimate boundedness of the closed-loop system can be guaranteed. Tracking errors meanwhile converge to small neighborhoods of the origin, and violations of predefined velocity constraints are avoided. Finally, numerical simulations are performed to verify the effectiveness of the theoretical developments.