Global output‐feedback stabilization for nonlinear systems with unknown relative degree

This paper is devoted to the global stabilization via output feedback for a class of nonlinear systems with unknown relative degree, dynamics uncertainties, unknown control direction, and nonparametric uncertain nonlinearities. In particular, the unknown relative degree is without known upper bound, which renders us to research for a filter with varying dimension rather than the ones with over dimensions in the existing literature. In comparison with more popular but a bit stronger input‐to‐state stable or input‐to‐state practically stable requirement, only bounded‐input bounded‐state stable requirement is imposed on the dynamics uncertainties, which affect the systems in a persistent intensity rather than in a decaying one. In this paper, to compensate multiple serious system uncertainties and realize global output‐feedback stabilization, a design scheme via switching logic together with varying dimensional filter is developed. In this scheme, 2 switching sequences, which separately generate the gains of the controller and act as the varying dimensions of the filter, are designed to overcome unknown control direction, dynamics uncertainties and nonparametric uncertain nonlinearities, and unknown relative degree, respectively. A 2‐mass lumped‐parameter structure is provided to show the effectiveness of the proposed method in this paper.     

Fuzzy linear pulse-transfer function-based sliding-mode control fornonlinear discrete-time systems

In this paper, a nonlinear discrete-time system in the presence of input disturbance and measurement noise is approximated by N subsystems described by the linear pulse-transfer functions. Although the input disturbance and the measurement noise are unknown, they are modeled as known pulse-transfer functions. The approximation error between the nonlinear discrete-time system and the fuzzy linear pulse-transfer function system is represented by the linear time-invariant dynamic system in every subsystem, whose degree can be larger than that of the corresponding subsystem. Besides the input disturbance and the measurement noise, uncertainties are caused by the approximation error of the fuzzy-model and the interconnected dynamics resulting from the other subsystems. Owing to the presence of input disturbance, measurement noise, or uncertainties, a disadvantageous response occurs. Based on Lyapunov redesign, the switching control in every subsystem is designed to reinforce the system performance. Due to the time-invariant feature for a constant reference input, the operating point can approach the sliding surface in the manner of finite-time steps. The stability of the overall system is verified by Lyapunov stability theory     

Sliding mode control for uncertain switched systems subject to actuator nonlinearity

This paper considers the problem of sliding mode control for a class of uncertain switched systems subject to sector nonlinearities and dead-zone. In the control systems, each subsystem is not required to share the same input channel, which is usually assumed in the previous works. By employing a weighted sum of the input matrices, a common sliding surface is designed and the corresponding sliding mode dynamics is obtained. A switching signal based on the average dwell time strategy is further proposed to ensure the exponential stability of the sliding mode dynamics. Moreover, it is shown that the reachability of the specified sliding surface can be ensured despite the presence of actuator nonlinearity, parameter uncertainties and external disturbances. Finally, a numerical example is given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

A singular system approach to robust sliding mode control for uncertain Markov jump systems

The robust sliding mode control for Markov jump systems with parameter uncertainties and an unknown nonlinear function is discussed. Based on a singular system approach and linear matrix inequality (LMI), a sufficient condition which guarantees the existence of linear switching surface and the stochastic stability of sliding mode dynamics is given. A sliding mode controller is designed such that the closed-loop system is convergent to the switching surface in finite time. A numerical example is given to show the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Robust switching signal estimation for a class of uncertain nonlinear switched systems

In this paper, a robust switching signal estimation approach is presented for a class of uncertain nonlinear switched systems using a sliding mode robust observer on the continuous state vector of system. In this approach, the estimation of switching signal is achieved at a bounded and arbitrary small time in spite of un-modelled uncertainties. The developed estimation technique can also be employed on mode-dependent control methods to reach a practical controller for nonlinear switched systems with the inaccessible switching signal. The simulation results illustrate the capability of proposed method.     

ROBUST FAULT‐TOLERANT CONTROL FOR A CLASS OF SWITCHED NONLINEAR SYSTEMS IN LOWER TRIANGULAR FORM

This paper investigates the problem of robust fault‐tolerant control for a class of uncertain switched nonlinear systems in lower triangular form. A system of this class involves parameter uncertainties and unknown nonlinear disturbances. A sufficient condition for the problem to be solvable under arbitrary switching is given in terms of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). State feedback controllers of subsystems are designed by using the solutions to the matrix inequalities to guarantee global asymptotic stability of the closed‐loop systems in presence of actuator failures and under arbitrary switching. A practical system of hybrid haptic display is analyzed to demonstrate the proposed design method.     

A new practical robust control of cable‐driven manipulators using time‐delay estimation

In this paper, a new practical robust control scheme is proposed and investigated for the cable‐driven manipulators under lumped uncertainties. There are three parts in the proposed method, ie, a time‐delay estimation (TDE) part, a modified super‐twisting algorithm (STA) part, and a fractional‐order nonsingular terminal sliding mode (FONTSM) error dynamics part. The TDE uses intentionally time‐delayed system signals to estimate the lumped dynamics of the system and ensures an attractive model‐free control structure. The STA is applied to guarantee high performance and chattering suppression simultaneously in the reaching phase. The FONTSM error dynamics is utilized to obtain fast convergence and strong robustness in the sliding mode phase. Thanks to the above three parts, the proposed control scheme is model free and can ensure high control performance under lumped uncertainties. The stability considering the FONTSM error dynamics and modified STA scheme is analyzed. Comparative simulation and experiments were conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness and superiorities of the newly proposed control scheme. Corresponding experimental results show that our newly proposed control scheme can provide more than 20% improvement of the steady control accuracy under three different reference trajectories.     

Adaptive finite‐time control for nonlinear teleoperation systems with asymmetric time‐varying delays

This paper addresses the adaptive finite‐time control problem of nonlinear teleoperation system in the presence of asymmetric time‐varying delays. To achieve the finite‐time position tracking, a novel adaptive finite‐time coordination algorithm based on subsystem decomposition is developed. By introducing a switching‐technique‐based error filtering into our design framework, the complete closed‐loop master (slave) teleoperation system is modeled as a special class of switched system, which is composed of two subsystems. To analyze such system, a finite‐time state‐independent input‐to‐output stability criterion is first developed for some normal switched nonlinear delayed systems. Then based on the classical Lyapunov–Krasovskii method, the stability of complete closed‐loop systems is obtained. It is shown that the proposed scheme can make the position errors converge into a deterministic domain in finite time when the robots continuously contact with human operator and/or the environment in the presence of asymmetric time‐varying delays. Finally, the simulation results are given to demonstrate the effectiveness. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Input and output constraints-based stabilisation of switched nonlinear systems with unstable subsystems and its application

This paper studies the problem of stabilisation of switched nonlinear systems with output and input constraints. We propose a recursive approach to solve this issue. None of the subsystems are assumed to be stablisable while the switched system is stabilised by dual design of controllers for subsystems and a switching law. When only dealing with bounded input, we provide nested switching controllers using an extended backstepping procedure. If both input and output constraints are taken into consideration, a Barrier Lyapunov Function is employed during operation to construct multiple Lyapunov functions for switched nonlinear system in the backstepping procedure. As a practical example, the control design of an equilibrium manifold expansion model of aero-engine is given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed design method.     

Exponential stability of nonlinear impulsive switched systems with stable and unstable subsystems

Exponential stability and robust exponential stability relating to switched systems consisting of stable and unstable nonlinear subsystems are considered in this study. At each switching time instant, the impulsive increments which are nonlinear functions of the states are extended from switched linear systems to switched nonlinear systems. Using the average dwell time method and piecewise Lyapunov function approach, when the total active time of unstable subsystems compared to the total active time of stable subsystems is less than a certain proportion, the exponential stability of the switched system is guaranteed. The switching law is designed which includes the average dwell time of the switched system. Switched systems with uncertainties are also studied. Sufficient conditions of the exponential stability and robust exponential stability are provided for switched nonlinear systems. Finally, simulations show the effectiveness of the result.     

A novel adaptive high-order sliding mode control based on integral sliding mode

This paper presents an adaptive high-order sliding mode control scheme targeting for uncertain minimum phase nonlinear single-input-single-output (SISO) systems, which can be equivalently formulated as the finite-time stabilization of high-order input-output dynamics subject to the uncertainties of parameters such as a chain of integrators. The proposed controller is derived from the concept of integral sliding mode and consists of two parts, one part of which achieves the finite-time stabilization of the high-order input-output dynamics without uncertainties by solving a finite-horizon optimal control problem with a free-final-state. The other part adopts the adaptive sliding mode control technique considering the practical bounded uncertainties, by which a modified switching gain adaptation algorithm is developed so that the on-line switching gain selection can be executed and the upper bounds of the uncertainties are not requisite in advance. As a result, a high-order sliding mode is established, ensuring the sliding variables and its high-order derivatives converge to an arbitrarily small vicinity of the origin in finite time. Therefore, the proposed controller achieves fixed convergence time and further improves strong robustness against bounded uncertainties with lower chattering and the easy implementation. Simulation results are presented in detail to verify the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed algorithm.     

Input/output-to-state stability of switched nonlinear systems with an improved average dwell time approach

This paper investigates the input/output-to-state stable (IOSS) property of the switched systems under average dwell time (ADT) switching signals in two cases: 1) all of the subsystems are IOSS, 2) parts of the subsystems are IOSS, and proposes a number of new results on stability analysis. First, we present a new IOSS result for the switched nonlinear systems whose subsystems are IOSS with an improved ADT method. Second, extending the improved ADT method to unforced nominal switched nonlinear systems in which parts of subsystems are stable, we establish a new stability analysis result. IOSS property of switched nonlinear systems in which parts of subsystems are IOSS, we show that if the average dwell time is large enough and if the fraction of time where one of the non-IOSS system is active is not too big, then IOSS property of the switched system can be established. It should be pointed that the main results obtained in this paper have some advantages over the exiting ones. Finally, two illustrative examples with simulation verify the correctness and validity of our results.     

Non-approximation-based outputs stabilization for switched large-scale nonlinear systems with quantized inputs and sensor uncertainties

A non-approximation-based output feedback control strategy for a class of switched large-scale nonlinear systems with quantized inputs and sensor uncertainties is proposed. A dynamic gain, which is shared by the state observers and controllers of all the subsystems, is designed so that the effects of sensor uncertainties, quantized inputs, unknown parameters, and external disturbances can be compensated. By constructing some common Lyapunov functions (CLFs) shared by the switched systems, it is proved that with the proposed scheme, the closed-loop system stability can be guaranteed under arbitrary switching, and the outputs of all the subsystems can be steered to within arbitrarily small neighborhoods of the origin.     

An algorithm for the robust exponential stabilization of a class of switched systems

In this paper, we consider continuous‐time switched systems whose subsystems are linear, or, more generally, homogeneous of degree one. For that class of systems, we present a control algorithm that under certain conditions generates switching signals that globally exponentially stabilizes the switched system, even in the case in which there are model uncertainties and/or measurement errors, provided that the bounds of that uncertainties and errors depend linearly on the norm of the state of the system and are small enough in a suitable sense. We also show that in the case in which the measurement errors and the model uncertainties are bounded, the algorithm globally exponentially stabilizes the system in a practical sense, with a final error which depends linearly on the bounds of both the model uncertainties and the measurement errors. In other words, the closed‐loop system is exponentially input‐to‐state‐stable if one considers the perturbations and output measurements bounds as inputs. For switched linear systems, under mild observability conditions, we design an observer whose state‐estimation drives the control algorithm to exponentially stabilize the system in absence of perturbations and to stabilize it in an ultimately bounded way when the perturbations and the output measurement errors are bounded. Finally, we illustrate the behavior of the algorithm by means of simulations. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An LMI-based variable structure control for a class of uncertain singular Markov switched systems

An H-infinifty variable structure control is presented for singular Markov switched systems with mismatched norm-bounded uncertainties and mismatched norm-bounded external disturbances. It is shown that the sliding mode dynamics on the given switching surface is regular, impulse-free, and stochastically stable and satisfies H-infinity performance. A variable structure controller is designed to guarantee that the system trajectory converges to the linear switching surface in some finite time. Finally, a numerical example is solved to show the effectiveness and validness of the theoretical results.     

Sum‐of‐Squares‐Based Finite‐Time Adaptive Sliding Mode Control of Uncertain Polynomial Systems With Input Nonlinearities

This paper proposes a novel adaptive sliding mode control (ASMC) for a class of polynomial systems comprising uncertain terms and input nonlinearities. In this approach, a new polynomial sliding surface is proposed and designed based on the sum‐of‐squares (SOS) decomposition. In the proposed method, an adaptive control law is derived such that the finite‐time reachability of the state trajectories in the presence of input nonlinearity and uncertainties is guaranteed. To do this, it is assumed that the uncertain terms are bounded and the input nonlinearities belong to sectors with positive slope parameters. However, the bound of the uncertain terms is unknown and adaptation law is proposed to effectively estimate the uncertainty bounds. Furthermore, based on a novel polynomial Lyapunov function, the finite‐time convergence of the sliding surface to a pre‐chosen small neighborhood of the origin is guaranteed. To eliminate the time derivatives of the polynomial terms in the stability analysis conditions, the SOS variables of the Lyapunov matrix are optimally selected. In order to show the merits and the robust performance of the proposed controller, chaotic Chen system is provided. Numerical simulation results demonstrate chattering reduction in the proposed approach and the high accuracy in estimating the unknown parameters.     

Adaptive tracking control for uncertain switched systems under asynchronous switching

This paper addresses the state‐tracking model reference adaptive control problem for a class of switched systems with parametric uncertainties, where switchings between subsystems and designed adaptive controller are asynchronous. First, we establish a stability criterion for a switched reference model and convert the state‐tracking problem into the stability problem of an error switched system. Then, an adaptive law is designed, and the global practical stability of the error switched system is guaranteed under a class of switching signals characterized by a dwell‐time condition. An electrohydraulic system is given as an example to demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed design method. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Finite-time boundedness and control design of uncertain switched systems with time-varying delay under new switching rules

In this article, the finite-time boundedness and control problem for time-delay switched systems with uncertainties are studied. The delay is considered as time-varying delay rather than constant delay, which is more suitable for practical engineering. First, the property of finite time boundedness for uncertain switched system without control input is researched by constructing a proper Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional (LKF) with three integral terms and the minimum LKF switching rules. Then, a state feedback controller with switching is designed. By utilizing Finsler's Lemma and singular value decomposition (SVD), sufficient conditions for finite-time boundedness of time-delay switched systems with control input and controller gain are presented. Additionally, a filter system is designed. The finite time boundedness and filter parameters of the closed-loop error system are obtained by using the auxiliary matrix method. Finally, the feasibility of the proposed methods and the significance of switching rule are demonstrated through two numerical examples.     

Model reference robust adaptive control for a class of uncertain switched linear systems

In this paper, we proposed a model reference robust adaptive control approach for a class of uncertain switched linear systems, in which subsystems of the switched linear system are in control canonical form. The control architecture is composed of a switched reference system (SRS) and a switched adaptive controller (SAC). The SRS specifies the desired dynamics of the uncertain switched linear system, while the SAC makes the uncertain switched linear system dynamics track the SRS dynamics. By multiple Lyapunov functions method, we prove that the closed‐loop switched system is uniformly bounded under arbitrary switching laws, provided that a linear matrix inequality (LMI)‐based sufficient condition is satisfied. We apply the proposed approach to a typical servo‐hydraulic positioning system. The simulation results show that the proposed approach is fairly insensitive to disturbances, uncertainties and non‐smoothly varying dynamics, and performs better than a proportional‐derivative controller or a minimal controller synthesis controller. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An LMI-based variable structure control for a class of uncertain singular Markov switched systems

An H-infinifty variable structure control is presented for singular Markov switched systems with mismatched norm-bounded uncertainties and mismatched norm-bounded external disturbances. It is shown that the sliding mode dynamics on the given switching surface is regular, impulse-free, and stochastically stable and satisfies H-infinity performance. A variable structure controller is designed to guarantee that the system trajectory converges to the linear switching surface in some finite time. Finally, a numerical example is solved to show the effectiveness and validness of the theoretical results.