Event-triggered decentralized output-feedback control for interconnected nonlinear systems with input quantization

In this paper, the event-triggered decentralized control problem for interconnected nonlinear systems with input quantization is investigated. A state observer is constructed to estimate the unmeasurable states, and the state-dependent interconnections are accommodated by presenting some smooth functions. Then by employing backstepping technique and neural networks (NNs) approximation capability, a novel decentralized output feedback control strategy and an event-triggered mechanism are designed simultaneously. It is proved through Lyapunov theory that the closed-loop system is stable and the tracking property of all subsystems is guaranteed. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed scheme is illustrated by an example.     

Leaderless and leader-following consensus of linear multi-agent systems with distributed event-triggered estimators

This paper considers the event-triggered leaderless and leader-following consensus problems for linear multi-agent systems. By introducing event-triggered estimators, two novel control schemes are proposed. Different from the existing event-triggered controllers, which rely on the Fiedler eigenvalue of Laplacian matrix, the developed controllers only use the information from neighboring agents. Meanwhile, the adaptive trigger parameters are designed in the event-triggered mechanisms to improve the self-regulation ability of the event-triggered estimators. In addition, the leaderless consensus and the leader-following consensus can be achieved under the corresponding control protocols. Finally, two simulation examples are given to illustrate the validity of the proposed control protocols.     

Optimal synchronization controller design for complex dynamical networks with unknown system dynamics

In this paper, the optimal synchronization controller design problem for complex dynamical networks with unknown system internal dynamics is studied. A necessary and sufficient condition on the existence of the optimal control minimizing a quadratic performance index is given. The optimal control law consists of a feedback control and a compensated feedforward control, and the feedback control gain can be obtained by solving the well-known Algebraic Riccati Equation (ARE). Especially, in the presence of unknown system dynamics, a novel adaptive iterative algorithm using the information of system states and inputs is proposed to solve the ARE to get the optimal feedback control gain. Finally, a simulation example shows the effectiveness of the theoretical results.     

Viable immersion and invariance control for a class of nonlinear systems and its application to aero-engines

This paper presents a novel approach to stabilize a class of nonlinear systems with state constraints. The motivation behind this study is the need to develop a stabilizing state feedback controller that does not require the knowledge of Lyapunov function and can regulate the states to the equilibrium while meeting the constraints. By using an integration of two relatively new tools: immersion and invariance (I&I) theory and viability theory, a sufficient condition for stability and stabilizability of a general nonlinear affine system with state constraints is derived; Then, the related results are exploited to stabilize a class of nonlinear system in feedback form and with state constraints represented by inequalities and the viable I&I stabilizing state feedback controller is obtained constructively. Further, an application to a nonlinear aero-engine model with the temperature constraint is given to illustrate the applicability and the effectiveness of the proposed method. Finally, a comparative simulation is presented, highlighting the advantages of the viable I&I controller.     

Output regulation for a class of positive switched systems

In this paper, a complete procedure for the study of the output regulation problem is established for a class of positive switched systems utilizing a multiple linear copositive Lyapunov functions scheme. The feature of the developed approach is that each subsystem is not required to has a solution to the problem. Moreover, two types of controllers and switching laws are devised. The first one depends on the state together with the external input and the other depends only the error. The conditions ensuring the solvability of the problem for positive switched systems are presented in the form of linear matrix equations plus linear inequalities under some mild constraints. Two examples are finally given to show the performance of the proposed control strategy.     

A data-driven covert attack strategy in the closed-loop cyber-physical systems

In this paper, a data-driven covert attack strategy is proposed for a class of closed-loop cyber-physical systems. Without the parameters of the system plant and the nominal controller, the attacker can only use the intercepted input and output data of the nominal system. The injected input attack signals are designed based on the subspace predictive control method, which can deviate the real outputs to the expected attack references in a future time horizon. Meanwhile, by injecting the designed output attack signals for compensation, the attack cannot be detected by the anomaly detector. The simulation results of an irrigation canal system illustrate the effect of the proposed strategy with satisfactory performances.     

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.     

A co-design methodology for cyber-physical systems under actuator fault and cyber attack

This paper investigates the controller design problem of cyber-physical systems (CPSs) to ensure the reliability and security when actuator faults in physical layers and attacks in cyber layers occur simultaneously. The actuator faults are time-varying, which cover bias fault, outage, loss of effectiveness and stuck. Besides that, some state-dependent cyber attacks are launched in control input commands and system measurement data channels, which may lead state information to the opposite direction. A novel co-design controller scheme is constructed by adopting a new Lyapunov function, Nussbaum-type function, and direct adaptive technique, which may further relax the requirements of actuator/sensor attacks information. It is proven that the states of the closed-loop system asymptotically converge to zero even if actuator faults, actuator attacks and sensor attack are time-varying and co-existing. Finally, simulation results are presented to show the effectiveness of the proposed control method.     

Novel event-triggered filter design for nonlinear networked control systems

This paper investigates the problem of event-triggered filter design for nonlinear networked control systems (NCSs) in the framework of interval type-2 (IT2) fuzzy systems. A novel IT2 fuzzy filter for ensuring asymptotic stability and H_∞ performance of filtering error system is proposed, where the premise variables are different from those of the fuzzy model. Attention is focused on solving the problem of event-triggered filter design subject to parameter uncertainties, data quantization, and communication delay in a unified frame. It is shown that the proposed event-triggered filter design communication mechanism for IT2 fuzzy NCSs has the advantage of the existing event-triggered approaches to reduce the utilization of limited network resources and provides flexibility in balancing the tracking error and the utilization of network resources. Finally, simulation example is given to validate the advantages of the presented results.     

Periodic event-triggered resilient control for cyber-physical systems under denial-of-service attacks

This paper studies the problem of designing a resilient control strategy for cyber-physical systems (CPSs) under denial-of-service (DoS) attacks. By constructing an H_∞ observer-based periodic event-triggered control (PETC) framework, the relationship between the event-triggering mechanism and the prediction error is obtained. Then, inspired by the maximum transmission interval, the input-to-state stability of the closed-loop system is proved. Compared with the existing methods, a Zeno-free periodic PETC scheme is designed for a continuous-time CPS with the external disturbance and measurement noise. In particular, the objective of maximizing the frequency and duration of the DoS attacks is achieved without losing robustness. Finally, two examples are given to verify the effectiveness of the proposed approach.     

Sampled observer-based adaptive output feedback fault-tolerant control for a class of strict-feedback nonlinear systems

This paper studies the sampled outputs-based adaptive fault-tolerant control problem for a class of strict-feedback uncertain nonlinear systems, where the nonlinear functions are allowed to include the unmeasured system states. Within the framework, a sampled output observer is introduced to jointly estimate the system states and parameters. By combining the estimated states and the supervisory switching strategy, an adaptive fault-tolerant controller is designed to achieve the desirable tracking performance. By using Lyapunov stability theory, it is proved that all the signals of the closed-loop systems are bounded and the tracking error converges to an adjustable neighbourhood of the origin eventually both in the fault free and faulty cases. Especially, if the outputs are available all the time, the proposed output feedback fault-tolerant control method can ensure the tracking error satisfy the prescribed performance bounds regardless of the faults. Finally, two examples are used to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Consensus of first-order discrete-time multi-agent systems with time delays

This paper mainly considers the consensus for first-order discrete-time multi-agent systems w.r.t. two key parameters, the step size T and the delay τ. First, the consensus is recast into the concurrent stability for a series of trinomials. Then, for each associated trinomial, we derive a necessary and sufficient stability condition, based on proving the two invariance properties for the asymptotic behavior of the critical unitary roots. As a result, the exhaustive consensus region in the $T?\tau$ parameter space (i.e., the parameter set such that the multi-agent system reaches a consensus iff T and τ belong to that set) is determined. Furthermore, we show that the obtained result also applies to systems with diverse input delays, through an extra sufficient consensus condition. Finally, two illustrative examples are presented.     

Adaptive disturbance attenuation for a class of uncertain nonlinear systems: A double-gain nonlinear observer method

This paper is concerned with the problem of adaptive disturbance attenuation for a class of nonlinear systems. The traditional adaptive methods are almost impossible to compensate the time-varying unknown disturbance by designing parameter adaptive laws without a priori knowledge about the bounds of external disturbances. To solve the problem, a new strategy is proposed by constructing an augmented system where the external disturbance is considered as another component of the augmented state vector. Based on this, a double-gain nonlinear observer is employed to estimate the state of the augmented nonlinear system. Further, an output feedback control strategy is designed, and it is proved that the proposed strategy ensures that all the signals are bounded and the tracking error exponentially converges to an adjustable compact set. Finally, an example is performed to demonstrate the validity of the proposed scheme.     

Distributed fault detection for nonlinear multi-agent systems under fixed-time observer

This paper mainly investigates the fault detection problem for nonlinear multi-agent systems with actuator faults. For fault detection, a fixed-time observer is proposed by employing auxiliary variable received from neighbor agents. Then, with the aid of the observer, a residual vector is introduced by the auxiliary variable to detect the faults occurring on any followers, and each observer can estimate the whole state of followers. Moreover, the convergence time is dependent on the parameters of the designed observer and independent of initial condition of system state. Finally, the theoretical result is verified by a simulation example.     

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.     

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

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

Finite-time lag synchronization of master-slave complex dynamical networks with unknown signal propagation delays

This paper studies the finite-time lag synchronization issue of master-slave complex networks with unknown signal propagation delays by the linear and adaptive error state feedback approaches. The unknown signal propagation delays are fully considered and estimated by adaptive laws. By designing new Lyapunov functional and discontinuous feedback controllers, which involves the estimated error rather than the general synchronization error, sufficient conditions are derived to ensure lag synchronization of the networks within a setting time. It is interesting to discover that the setting time is related to initial values of both the estimated error and the estimated unknown signal propagation delays. Finally, two numerical examples are given to illustrate the effectiveness and correctness of the proposed finite-time lag synchronization criteria.     

Nuclear norm-based recursive subspace prediction of time-varying continuous-time stochastic systems via distribution theory

A method for nuclear norm-based recursive subspace prediction of time-varying continuous-time stochastic systems via distribution theory is proposed. The random distribution theory is adopted to describe the time-derivative of stochastic processes, which is the key to obtain the input–output algebraic equation. The low-rank matrix approximation of the input–output projection matrix is established by nuclear norm minimization instead of the singular value decomposition. Moreover, the optimization problem is deduced by the alternating direction method of multipliers. According to the angle rotation between past and present subspaces spanned by the extended observability matrices, the future signal subspace is predicted by the present subspace. Further, the system matrices are predicted and the corresponding system model is obtained. The results of simulation studies show the effectiveness of the presented method.     

Leader-following consensus of nonlinear discrete-time multi-agent systems with limited communication channel capacity

This paper considers the problem of the leader-following consensus of generally nonlinear discrete-time multi-agent systems with limited communication channel capacity over directed fixed communication networks. The leader agent and all follower agents are with multi-dimensional nonlinear dynamics. We propose a novel kind of consensus algorithm for each follower agent based on dynamic encoding and decoding algorithms and conduct a rigorous analysis for consensus convergence. It is proved that under the consensus algorithm designed, the leader-following consensus is achievable and the quantizers equipped for the multi-agent systems can never be saturated. Furthermore, we give the explicit forms of the data transmission rate for the connected communication channel. By properly designing the system parameters according to restriction conditions, we can ensure the consensus and communication efficiency with merely one bit information exchanging between each pair of adjacent agents per step. Finally, simulation example is presented to verify the validity of results obtained.