Dynamic gain scheduling control design for linear multiagent systems subject to input saturation

This paper considers the finite-time bipartite consensus problem governed by linear multiagent systems subject to input saturation under directed interaction topology. Due to the existence of input saturation, the dynamic performance of linear multiagent systems degrades significantly. For the improvement of the dynamic performance of systems, a dynamic gain scheduling control approach is proposed to design a dynamic Laplacian-like feedback controller, which can be obtained from the analytical solution of a parametric Lyapunov equation. Suppose that each agent is asymptotically null controllable with bounded control, and that the corresponding interaction topology of the signed directed graph with a spanning tree is structurally balanced. Then the dynamic Laplacian-like feedback control can ensure that linear multiagent systems will achieve the finite time bipartite consensus. The dynamic gain scheduling control can better improve the bipartite consensus performance of the linear multiagent systems than the static gain scheduling control. Finally, two examples are provided to show the effectiveness of the proposed control design method.     

Global practical tracking for nonlinear systems with uncertain dead-zone input via output feedback

In this paper, global practical tracking is investigated via output feedback for a class of uncertain nonlinear systems subject to unknown dead-zone input. The nonlinear systems under consideration allow more general growth restriction, where the growth rate includes unknown constant and output polynomial function. Without the precise priori knowledge of dead-zone characteristic, an input-driven observer is designed by introducing a novel dynamic gain. Based on non-separation principle, a universal adaptive output feedback controller is proposed by combining dynamic high-gain scaling approach with backstepping method. The controller proposed guarantees that the closed-loop output can track any smooth and bounded reference signal by any small pre-given tracking error, while all closed-loop signals are globally bounded. Finally, simulation examples are given to illustrate the effectiveness of our dynamic output feedback control scheme.     

Observer-based semi-global containment of saturated multi-agent systems with uncertainties

In this article, the robust semi-global containment control for multi-agent systems affected by uncertainties, such as input additive disturbance, input saturation and dead zone is addressed. An observer-based control algorithm is designed by combining the high-gain observer approach and the low-and-high gain feedback technique. Under the assumption that all agents are asymptotically null controllable with bounded controls and each follower can access the information of at least one leader through a directed path, sufficient conditions for the semi-global output feedback containment control are provided. Finally, numerical simulations are proposed to verify the main theoretical results.     

Dynamic event-triggered adaptive semi-global bipartite consensus of linear multi-agent systems with input saturation under fixed and switching topologies

This paper investigates dynamic event-triggered adaptive leader-following semi-global bipartite consensus (SGBC) of multi-agent systems (MASs) with input saturation. A dynamic event-triggered adaptive control (DETAC) protocol is presented, where the triggering function can regulate its threshold value dynamically. It’s turned out that the SGBC can be achieved via the DETAC protocol under some inequalities. Then, the proposed DETAC protocol is extended to solve bipartite consensus under jointly connected topology. Furthermore, the Zeno behaviors will be avoided. Finally, the rationality of proposed DETAC protocols are tested by simulation results.     

Global stabilization of linear systems subject to input saturation and time delays

This note is concerned with global stabilization of linear systems subject to input saturation and time delays. Based on the Luenberger canonical form, two new decoupling methods are proposed. For the decoupled system, according to some special canonical forms, we propose two control laws for systems with input time-delays and systems with input saturation and time-delays, and give explicit conditions to ensure the global stability of the closed-loop system. Two special canonical forms contain time delays in input and state vectors, which is essential in recursive design. In addition, for the system subject to input saturation and time-delay, we introduce some free parameters when designing the controller, which can improve the instantaneous performance of the closed-loop system. Finally, the proposed approach is applied on the multi-agent system to design global stabilizing controllers and the effectiveness of the proposed controllers are illustrated by numerical simulations.     

Sliding mode consistency tracking control of multiple heavy haul trains under input saturation and safety distance constraints

In order to ensure that under the influence of input saturation, a safe distance between adjacent locomotives and adjacent trains in multiple heavy haul trains (HHTS) is main-tained, an anti-saturation sliding mode consistency (ASMC) control algorithm is proposed. First, a multitrain and multiparticle dynamic model (MMDM) based on multitrain single particle that considers nonlinear coupling force and external disturbance effect is established. Next, a dynamic auxiliary compensation (DAC) system combined with sliding mode surface that can rapidly reduce the saturation deviation is designed and consistency algorithm of the simplified control structure is introduced to construct the ASMC control algorithm. Then, theoretical derivation proved that the algorithm can ensure the convergence of the tracking distance between adjacent locomotives and between adjacent trains to a bounded safe range whilst overcoming the influence of input saturation on each train. Lastly, the simulink and RT-LAB simulation results are used to verify the effectiveness of the design algorithm.     

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.     

Robust adaptive regulation of magnetic levitation systems with input quantization and external disturbances

This paper investigates two intricate problems in magnetic levitation systems: the loss of the information during the transmission over a limited communication network channel and the chattering caused by external disturbances. By combining input quantization technique with two infinitesimal smooth functions, we successfully construct a continuous robust adaptive feedback controller which stabilizes the position of the levitated electromagnet at the equilibrium point. Compared with the existing methods, the proposed quantized control strategy not only guarantees the global stability with asymptotic state regulation of the system even if there are external disturbances, but also exhibits better performance than that of traditional PID control. The simulation validates the robustness and effectiveness of the proposed scheme.     

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.     

Command filtered robust adaptive NN control for a class of uncertain strict-feedback nonlinear systems under input saturation

This paper develops a robust adaptive neural network (NN) tracking control scheme for a class of strict-feedback nonlinear systems with unknown nonlinearities and unknown external disturbances under input saturation. The radial basis function NNs with minimal learning parameter (MLP) are employed to online approximate the uncertain system dynamics. The adaptive laws are designed to online update the upper bound of the norm of ideal NN weight vectors, and the sum of the bounds of NN approximation errors and external disturbances, respectively. An auxiliary dynamic system is constructed to generate the augmented error signals which are used to modify the adaptive laws for preventing the destructive action due to the input saturation. Moreover, the command filtering backstepping control method is utilized to overcome the shortcoming of dynamic surface control method, the tracking-differentiator-based control method, etc. Our proposed scheme is qualified for simultaneously dealing with the input saturation effect, the heavy computational burden and the “explosion of complexity” problems. Theoretical analysis illuminates that our scheme ensures the boundedness of all signals in the closed-loop systems. Simulation results on two examples verify the effectiveness of our developed control scheme.     

An explicit-time and explicit-accuracy control for a state-constrained nonstrict-feedback uncertain system based on adaptive fuzzy dynamic-approximation

This article proposes a novel explicit-time and explicit-accuracy adaptive fuzzy control for a state-constrained nonlinear nonstrict-feedback uncertain system. This method can explicitly parameterize the upper bound of settling-time with low initial control input under a bounded initial condition. Meanwhile, this method can also explicitly parameterize the upper bound of accuracy while achieving low control input based on the adaptive fuzzy dynamic-approximation theorem. Firstly, a novel generalized explicit-time stability system is proposed by introducing the boundary gain term to render the time-parameter explicit, this method can solve the input conservatism problem caused by the unbounded-state gain term of traditional fixed/prdefined-time function. Then, according to the universal fuzzy approximation theorem, the novel dynamic relationship of adaptive fuzzy logic system between approximation error and adaptive parameters is presented. This relationship can lead to the adaptive fuzzy dynamic-approximation theorem, and an adaptive law designed by this theorem can realize the Lyapunov stability of adaptive control system under a Lasalle invariant set. In the end, a novel adaptive fuzzy control scheme is proposed by the generalized explicit-time function and adaptive fuzzy dynamic-approximation theorem. This scheme can achieve the explicit-time stability by the human-like activation function, and the accuracy can be parameterized by Lyapunov synthesis. Compared with other existing fixed/prdefined-time adaptive fuzzy control methods, the proposed explicit-time and explicit-accuracy controller achieves a significant reduction in the initial control input. Theoretical analysis and simulation results validate the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Adaptive bipartite output consensus for heterogeneous multi-agent systems with quantized information: A fixed-time approach

This paper researches the output consensus problem of heterogeneous linear multi-agent systems with cooperative and antagonistic interactions. Two fixed-time state compensator control approaches, one static dynamic and the other distributed adaptive dynamic, are considered for heterogeneous systems subject to logarithmic quantization. Then, a fixed-time output regulation control protocol is constructed to cope with the problem of bipartite output consensus and adaptive fixed-time output consensus of heterogeneous systems which is fully distributed without any global information. Besides, the fully distributed adaptive algorithm is employed to calculate the system matrix of leader and it’s also effectively eliminated the harmful chattering. Finally, two simulations are carried out to testify the feasibility of theoretical results.     

Composite cooperative synchronization and decentralized learning of multi-robot manipulators with heterogeneous nonlinear uncertain dynamics

This paper studies the problem of composite synchronization and learning of multiple coordinated robot manipulators subject to heterogeneous nonlinear uncertain dynamics under the leader-follower framework. A new two-layer distributed adaptive learning control scheme is proposed, which consists of the first-layer distributed cooperative estimator and the second-layer decentralized deterministic learning controller. The first layer aims to enable each robotic agent to estimate the leader’s information. The second layer is responsible for not only controlling each individual robotic agent to track over desired reference trajectory, but also accurately identifying/learning each robot’s nonlinear uncertain dynamics. Design and implementation of this two-layer distributed controller can be carried out in a fully-distributed manner, which do not require any global information including global connectivity of the communication network. The Lyapunov method is applied to rigorously analyze stability and parameter convergence of the resulting closed-loop system. Numerical simulations on a team of two-degree-of-freedom robot manipulators have been conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed results.     

Distributed robust event-triggered adaptive control for a class of uncertain nonlinear multi-agent systems with actuator saturation

This paper studies the event-triggered consensus control problem for high-order uncertain nonlinear multi-agent systems with actuator saturation. By using a smooth Lipschitz function to approximate the saturation nonlinearity, an augment system and the Nussbaum function are adopted to deal with the residual terms of saturation nonlinearity based on adaptive backstepping method. Since excessive energy and communication resources will be consumed during the procedure to handle actuator saturation, two event-triggered mechanisms are proposed to save the communication resources and reduce the controllers’ update frequency. Whenever the triggered conditions are satisfied, the control signals transmitted to the actuators are updated and broadcasted to the neighboring area. A ’disturbance-like’ term is integrated so that the event-triggered control problem with actuator saturation can be transformed into a robust problem while the unknown disturbances are tackled by adaptive update laws. Moreover, the requirement for global communication topology known by all the agents is relaxed by introducing new estimators. All the signals in the closed-loop system are uniformly bounded and the consensus tracking errors are exponentially converged to a bounded set. Meanwhile, the Zeno behavior is excluded. Simulation results are employed to validate the advantages of our proposed methods.     

Adaptive synchronization of unknown heterogeneous agents: An adaptive virtual model reference approach

This work deals with state synchronization of heterogeneous linear agents with unknown dynamics. The problem is solved by formulating the synchronization problem as a special model reference adaptive control where each agent tries to converge to the model defined by its neighbors. For those agents that do not know the reference signal that drives the flock, a fictitious reference is estimated in place of the actual one: the estimation of such reference is distributed and requires measurements from neighbors. By using a matching condition assumption, which is imposed so that the agents can converge to the same behavior, the fictitious reference estimation leads to adaptive laws for the feedback and the coupling gains arising from distributed matching conditions. In addition, the coupling connection is not scalar as in most literature, but possibly vector-valued. The proposed approach is applicable to heterogeneous agents with arbitrarily large matched uncertainties. A Lyapunov-based approach is derived to show analytically asymptotic convergence of the synchronization error: robustification in the presence of bounded errors or unknown (constant) leader input is also discussed. Finally, a motivational example is presented in the context of Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control and numerical examples are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Output feedback robust H∞ control for spacecraft rendezvous system subject to input saturation: A gain scheduled approach

In this paper, the problem of output feedback robust H_∞ control for spacecraft rendezvous system with parameter uncertainties, disturbances and input saturation is investigated. Firstly, a full-order state observer is designed to reconstruct the full state information, whose gain matrix can be obtained by solving the linear matrix inequality (LMI). Subsequently, by combining the parametric Riccati equation approach and gain scheduled technique, an observer-based robust output feedback gain scheduled control scheme is proposed, which can make full use of the limited control capacity and improve the control performance by scheduling the control gain parameter increasingly. Rigorous stability analyses are shown that the designed discrete gain scheduled controller has faster convergence performance and better robustness than static gain controller. Finally, the performance and advantage of the proposed gain scheduled control scheme are demonstrated by numerical simulation.     

Model free adaptive iterative learning control for a class of nonlinear systems with randomly varying iteration lengths

This paper proposes a novel model free adaptive iterative learning control scheme for a class of unknown nonlinear systems with randomly varying iteration lengths. By applying the dynamic linearization technique along the iteration axis, such systems can be transformed into iteration-depended time varying linear systems. Then, an improved model free adaptive iterative learning control scheme can be constructed only using input and output data of the system. From the rigorous theoretical analysis, it is shown that the mathematical expectation of tracking errors converge to zero as iteration increases. This design does not require any dynamic information of the ILC systems and prior information of randomly varying iteration lengths. An illustrative example verifies the effectiveness of the proposed design.     

Adaptive coordinated attitude control for spacecraft formation with saturating actuators and unknown inertia

In this paper, an adaptive attitude coordination control problem for spacecraft formation flying is investigated under a general directed communication topology containing a directed spanning tree with a leader as the root. In the presence of unknown time-varying inertia, persistent external disturbances and control input saturation, a novel robust adaptive coordinated attitude control algorithm with no prior knowledge of inertia for spacecraft is proposed to coordinately track the common time-varying reference states. Aiming at optimizing the control algorithm, a dynamic adjustment function is introduced to adjust the control gain according to the tracking errors. The effectiveness of the proposed control scheme is illustrated through numerical simulation results.     

Dynamic event-triggered optimal tracking control for constrained nonlinear stochastic systems

This paper investigates the optimal tracking control problem (OTCP) for nonlinear stochastic systems with input constraints under the dynamic event-triggered mechanism (DETM). Firstly, the OTCP is converted into the stabilizing optimization control problem by constructing a novel stochastic augmented system. The discounted performance index with nonquadratic utility function is formulated such that the input constraint can be encoded into the optimization problem. Then the adaptive dynamic programming (ADP) method of the critic-only architecture is employed to approximate the solutions of the OTCP. Unlike the conventional ADP methods based on time-driven mechanism or static event-triggered mechanism (SETM), the proposed adaptive control scheme integrates the DETM to further lighten the computing and communication loads. Furthermore, the uniform ultimately boundedness (UUB) of the critic weights and the tracking error are analysed with the Lyapunov theory. Finally, the simulation results are provided to validate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.     

Fuzzy adaptive event-triggered control for uncertain nonlinear system with prescribed performance: A combinational measurement approach

This paper addresses the adaptive fuzzy event-triggered control (ETC) problem for a class of nonlinear uncertain systems with unknown nonlinear functions. A novel ETC approach that exhibits a combinational triggering (CT) behavior is proposed to update the controller and fuzzy weight vectors, achieving the non-periodic control input signals for nonlinear systems. A CT-based fuzzy adaptive observer is firstly constructed to estimate the unmeasurable states. Based on this, an output feedback ETC is proposed following the backstepping and error transformation methods, which ensures the prescribed dynamic tracking (PDT) performance. The PDT performance indicates that the transient bounds, over-shooting and ultimate values of tracking errors are fully determined by the control parameters and functions chosen by users. The closed-loop stability is guaranteed under the framework of impulsive dynamic system. Besides, the Zeno phenomenon is circumvented. The theoretical analysis indicates that the proposed scheme guarantees control performance while considerably reducing the communication resource utilization and controller updating frequency. Finally, the numerical simulations are conducted to verify the theoretical findings.