Adaptive synchronization of multi-agent systems via variable impulsive control

This paper mainly focuses on the adaptive synchronization problem of multi-agent systems via distributed impulsive control method. Different from the existing investigations of impulsive synchronization with fixed time impulsive inputs, the proposed distributed variable impulsive protocol allows that the impulsive inputs are chosen within a time period (namely impulsive time window) which can be described by the distances of the left (right) endpoints or the centers between two adjacent impulsive time windows. Obviously, this kind of flexible control scheme is more effective in practical systems (especially for the complex environment with physical restrictions). Moreover, the proposed adaptive control technique is helpful to solve the problem with uncertain system parameters. By means of Lyapunov stability theory, impulsive differential equations and adaptive control technique, three sufficient impulsive consensus conditions are given to realize the synchronization of a class of multi-agent nonlinear systems. Finally, two numerical simulations are provided to illustrate the validity of the theoretical analysis.     

Sliding-mode consensus algorithms for disturbed second-order multi-agent systems

In this paper, both leaderless and leader-follower consensus problems for a class of disturbed second-order multi-agent systems are studied. Based on integral sliding-mode control, sliding-mode consensus protocols are proposed for leaderless and leader-follower multi-agent systems with disturbances, respectively. Firstly, for leaderless second-order multi-agent systems, a sliding-mode consensus protocol is proposed to make the agents achieve asymptotic consensus. Secondly, for leader-follower second-order multi-agent systems, a finite-time sliding-mode consensus protocol is designed to make the agents achieve consensus in finite time. Both kinds of consensus protocols inherit the anti-disturbance performance and robustness of sliding-mode control and require less communication information. Finally, two numerical simulations are given for leaderless and leader-follower second-order multi-agent systems to validate the efficiency of the proposed consensus protocols.     

Containment control of heterogeneous fractional-order multi-agent systems

Fractional-order calculus has been studied deeply because many networked systems can only be described with fractional-order dynamics in complex environments. When different agents of networked systems show diverse individual features, fractional-order dynamics with heterogeneous characters will be used to illustrate the multi-agent systems (MAS). Based on the distinguishing behaviors of agents, a compounded fractional-order multi-agent systems(FOMAS) is presented with diverse dynamical equations. Suppose multiple leader agents existing in FOMAS, containment consensus control of FOMAS with directed weighted topologies is studied. By applying frequency domain analysis theory of the fractional-order operator, an upper bound of delays is obtained to ensure containment controls of heterogenous FOMAS with communication delays. The consensus results of delayed fractional-order dynamics in this paper can be expanded to the integer-order models. Finally, the results are verified by simulation examples.     

Analysis and pinning control for generalized synchronization of delayed coupled neural networks with different dimensional nodes

This paper investigate the generalized synchronization and pinning adaptive generalized synchronization for delayed coupled different dimensional neural networks with hybrid coupling, respectively. First, some sufficient conditions for reaching the generalized synchronization and pinning generalized synchronization of the considered network are acquired by using some inequality techniques and Lyapunov functional method. Second, because the precise parameter values of network cannot be obtained in some situations, we also purse the study on the generalized synchronization analysis and pinning control for the case of coupled different dimensional neural networks with parameter uncertainties. Third, two numerical examples are provided for substantiating the effectiveness of the derived results.     

Fault-tolerant control for commercial aircraft with actuator faults and constraints

In this paper, a constrained control scheme based on model reference adaptive control is investigated for the longitudinal motion of a commercial aircraft with actuator faults and saturation nonlinearities. Actuator faults and constraints are both important factors adversely affecting the stability and performance of flight control systems. An adaptive adjustment law based on Lyapunov function is utilized to adjust the fault-tolerant control law. Both additive and multiplicative faults are considered in the designed controller to deal with the three types of actuator faults: locked in place, loss of effectiveness, and bias. Moreover, different techniques are implemented in the basic and fault-tolerant controller to anti-windup. Proofs for the stability of the two modified controllers which improve the performance of control system operating in the presence of actuator faults and saturations are proposed. Finally, a numerical example of the anti-windup fault-tolerant controller for a commercial aircraft is demonstrated. The stability and performance improvements can be accrued with the presented fault-tolerant control scheme.     

Towards enhancing stacked extreme learning machine with sparse autoencoder by correntropy

The stacked extreme learning machine (S-ELM) is an advanced framework of deep learning. It passes the ‘reduced’ outputs of the previous layer to the current layer, instead of directly propagating the previous outputs to the next layer in traditional deep learning. The S-ELM could address some large and complex data problems with a high accuracy and a relatively low requirement for memory. However, there is still room for improvement of the time complexity as well as robustness while using S-ELM. In this article, we propose an enhanced S-ELM by replacing the original principle component analysis (PCA) technique used in this algorithm with the correntropy-optimized temporal PCA (CTPCA), which is robust for outliers rejection and significantly improves the training speed. Then, the CTPCA-based S-ELM performs better than S-ELM in both accuracy and learning speed, when dealing with dataset disturbed by outliers. Furthermore, after integrating the extreme learning machine (ELM) sparse autoencoder (AE) method into the CTPCA-based S-ELM, the learning accuracy is further improved while spending a little more training time. Meanwhile, the sparser and more compact feature information are available by using the ELM sparse AE with more computational efforts. The simulation results on some benchmark datasets verify the effectiveness of our proposed methods.     

Chattering-free full-order recursive sliding mode control for finite-time attitude synchronization of rigid spacecraft

This paper investigates a quaternion-based finite-time cooperative attitude synchronization and tracking of multiple rigid spacecraft with a virtual leader subject to bounded external disturbances. Firstly, the communication network between followers is assumed to be an undirected graph and every follower can get a direct access to the virtual leader, by using two neighborhood attitude error signals, a novel chattering-free recursive full-order sliding mode control algorithm is proposed such that all follower spacecraft synchronize to the virtual leader in finite time. In the proposed algorithm, the sliding mode surface is constructed by two layers of sliding mode surfaces, which are called as the outer and the inner sliding mode surfaces. To achieve finite-time performance of sliding mode dynamics, the outer sliding mode surface is designed as a terminal sliding mode manifold, and the inner one is designed as a fast nonsingular terminal sliding mode manifold, respectively. Then, to reduce the heavy communication burden, a distributed recursive full-order sliding mode control law is designed by introducing a distributed finite-time sliding mode estimator such that only a subset of the group members has access to the virtual leader. Finally, a numerical example is illustrated to demonstrate the validity of the proposed results.     

Consensus analysis for multi-agent systems via periodic event-triggered algorithms with quantized information

In this article, a novel distributed event-triggered control protocol for the consensus of second-order multi-agent systems with undirected topology is studied. Based on the proposed control protocol, the event-triggered condition is evaluated only at every sampling instant. The control input for each agent will be updated with local information if and only if its condition is violated. Both ideal and quantized relative state measurements are considered under this framework. Some sufficient conditions for achieving consensus are derived using spectral properties of edge Laplacian matrix and the discrete-time Lyapunov function method. Finally, numerical examples are given to demonstrate the effectiveness of our theoretical results.     

A new Lyapunov functional approach to sampled-data synchronization control for delayed neural networks

This paper discusses the problem of synchronization for delayed neural networks using sampled-data control. We introduce a new Lyapunov functional, called complete sampling-interval-dependent discontinuous Lyapunov functional, which can adequately capture sampling information on both intervals from $r(t?\overline{\tau })$ to $r(t_k?\overline{\tau })$ and from $r(t?\overline{\tau })$ to $r(t_{k+1}?\overline{\tau })$. Based on this Lyapunov functional and an improved integral inequality, less conservative conditions are derived to ensure the stability of the synchronization error system, leading to the fact that the drive neural network is synchronized with the response neural network. The desired sampled-data controller is designed in terms of solutions to linear matrix inequalities. A numerical example is provided to demonstrate that the proposed approaches are effective and superior to some existing ones in the literature.     

Intermittent control strategy for synchronization of fractional-order neural networks via piecewise Lyapunov function method

In this paper, the synchronization problem of fractional-order neural networks (FNNs) with chaotic dynamics is investigated via the intermittent control strategy. Two types of intermittent control methods, the aperiodic one and the periodic one, are applied to achieve the synchronization of the considered systems. Based on the dynamic characteristics of the intermittent control systems, the piecewise Lyapunov function method is employed to derive the synchronization criteria with less conservatism. The results under the aperiodically intermittent control show more generality than the ones via the periodically intermittent control. For each of the aperiodic and periodic cases, a simple controller design process is presented to show how to design the corresponding intermittent controller. Finally, two numerical examples are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the obtained theoretical results.     

Distributed sensor fault diagnosis for a formation of multi-vehicle systems

In the paper, a distributed sensor fault detection and isolation scheme is presented for a network of second-order integrators. A new distributed control law is developed to achieve formation of the system. By using the integration information of distributed formation errors, the control law improves the robustness of the formation. A distributed observer is then designed in each vehicle based on the closed-loop dynamic model of the vehicle. Each vehicle updates the states of the distributed observer by employing the measurements of itself and the transmitted state estimations from its neighbors. Based on the distributed observer, a distributed fault detection observer and a distributed fault isolation observer are designed. The presented distributed fault detection observer in each vehicle is able to be sensitive to the faults of all vehicles in the system. By using the distributed fault isolation observers, each vehicle is able to be sensitive to the faults of itself, its neighbors and its neighbors’ neighbors and to be robust to the faults of other vehicles. Although the fault isolation of the proposed scheme is simple, computation loads of the scheme are lower than the current ones since only the model of the individual vehicle is used. Finally, the effectiveness of the control law and the fault diagnosis scheme is demonstrated by simulations and real-time experiments carried out based on a formation of three quadrotors.     

Quantitative mean square exponential stability and stabilization of stochastic systems with Markovian switching

This paper is concerned with the quantitative mean square exponential stability and stabilization for stochastic systems with Markovian switching. First, the concept of quantitative mean square exponential stability(QMSES) is introduced, and two stability criteria are derived. Then, based on an auxiliary definition of general finite-time mean square stability(GFTMSS), the relations among QMSES, GFTMSS and finite time stochastic stability (FTSS) are obtained. Subsequently, QMSE-stabilization is investigated and several new sufficient conditions for the existence of the state and observer-based controllers are provided by means of linear matrix inequalities. An algorithm is given to achieve the relation between the minimum states’ upper bound and the states’ decay velocity. Finally, a numerical example is utilized to show the merit of the proposed results.     

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.     

Guaranteed cost synchronization for second-order wireless sensor networks with given cost budgets

The current paper addresses leader-following guaranteed cost synchronization with the cost budget given previously for the second-order wireless sensor networks. The published researches on guaranteed cost synchronization design criteria usually are based on the linear matrix inequality (LMI) techniques and cannot take the cost budget given previously into consideration. Firstly, the current paper proposes a guaranteed cost synchronization protocol, which can realize the tradeoff design between the battery power consumption and the synchronization regulation performance. Secondly, for the case without the given cost budget, sufficient conditions for leader-following guaranteed cost synchronization are presented and an upper bound of the cost function is shown. Thirdly, for the case that the cost budget is given previously, the criterion for leader-following guaranteed cost synchronization is proposed. Especially, the value ranges of control gains in these criteria are determined, which means that the existence of control gains in synchronization criteria can be guaranteed, but the LMI techniques can only determine the gain matrix and cannot give the value ranges of control gains. Moreover, these criteria are only associated with the minimum nonzero eigenvalue and the maximum eigenvalue, which can ensure the scalability of the wireless sensor networks. Finally, numerical simulations are given to illustrate theoretical results.     

Fractional-order follower observer design for tracking consensus in second-order leader multi-agent systems: Periodic sampled-based event-triggered control

This paper investigates the tracking consensus problem for the second-order leader systems by designing fractional-order observer, where a periodic sampled-based data event-triggered control is employed. In order to track the position information of leader, observers for followers are designed by fractional-order system, where only the relative position information is available. Furthermore, in the process of observers design, a sampled-based event-triggered strategy is proposed so that observers use the event-triggered sampled-data, to reduce the overall load of the network. In our proposed event-triggered strategy, the event detection only works at every sampling time instant which determines whether the sampled-data should be discarded or used. Under this control strategy, the Zeno-behavior is absolutely excluded since the minimum of inter-event times is inherently lower bounded by one sampling period. It is found that the followers can track state of the leader if fractional-order observers are appropriately designed and relevant parameters are properly selected. By using the generalized Nyquist stability criterion, a necessary and sufficient condition for the observer tracking consensus of the second-order leader systems is derived. The results show that the real and imaginary parts of the eigenvalues of the augmented Laplacian matrix, and fractional-order α of observer play a vital role in reaching consensus.     

Rapid Lyapunov control for decoherence-free subspaces of Markovian open quantum systems

A Lyapunov-based rapid control scheme is proposed to drive a Markovian open quantum system to a decoherence-free subspace by constructing the control Hamiltonians of the system. Based on Lyapunov theory, we design a general form of control laws, which includes the standard Lyapunov control law. The convergence of the control system to the decoherence-free subspace is strictly proved. By analyzing the relationship between the LaSalle invariant set and the decoherence-free subspace, we propose a construction method for the control Hamiltonians to further speed up the control process. Simulation experiments on a three-level quantum system demonstrate that the rapid Lyapunov control scheme proposed in this paper has a good control performance.     

Output formation-containment of coupled heterogeneous linear systems under intermittent communication

This paper investigates the output formation-containment problem of the coupled heterogeneous linear systems under intermittent communication. The systems considered in this paper are more general in the sense that each system, whether a leader or a follower, has different dimension and different dynamic. Besides, each system only communicates with its neighbors intermittently. Based on the intermittent information, both the state-feedback and the output-feedback distributed control protocols are designed and a criterion is derived to calculate the lower bound of the communication ratio. Furthermore, a heuristic algorithm based on the Fireworks Algorithm is developed to obtain an optimized communication ratio, which greatly reduces the communication burden. Finally, numerical examples are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the theoretical results.     

Stochastic consensus of discrete-time second-order multi-agent systems with measurement noises and time delays

We study the consensus control of discrete-time second-order multi-agents systems with time delays and multiplicative noises, where the consensus protocol is designed by both the local relative position measurements and each agent’s absolute velocity. Due to the existence of time delays and multiplicative noises, the classical methods for deterministic models with time delays cannot work. In this paper, we apply stochastic stability theorem of discrete-time stochastic delay equations to find some explicit sufficient conditions for both mean square and almost sure consensus. It is proven that for any given noise intensities and time delays, the second-order multi-agent consensus can be achieved by choosing appropriate control gains in the relative position measurement and absolute velocity, respectively. Numerical simulation is given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed protocols as well as the theoretical results.     

Finite-time control for periodic systems with Markov jump sensor nonlinearities and random input gains

Finite-time control for periodic systems with sensor nonlinearities and random input gains is addressed in this work. The variation of sensor nonlinearities is modeled by a Markov chain, and a stochastic variable is used to describe the influence of the actuator. A mode- and sensor nonlinearity-dependent non-fragile controller is designed to improve the performance and the non-fragility of the controller. The finite-time boundedness of the closed-loop system is ensured by a sufficient condition, the corresponding controller is then designed. Finally, the effectiveness of the developed results is illustrated by a numerical example.     

Chaotification of a class of linear switching systems based on a Shilnikov criterion

This paper proposes an approach for constructing and generating chaos from a class of three-dimensional linear switching systems via a heteroclinic loop based on the Shilnikov criterion. First, the existence of a switching rule for the system is derived by utilizing the Shilnikov heteroclinic criterion. Then a general design philosophy and its procedure of switching rule are provided to ensure that the proposed approach is applicable to engineering. Two numerical examples are presented to validate the main principle and the implementability of the scheme. Theoretical analysis and numerical simulation are used to demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of developed techniques.