Left invertibility of discrete systems with finite inputs and quantised output

The aim of this article is to address left invertibility for dynamical systems with inputs and outputs in discrete sets. We study systems which evolve in discrete time within a continuous state-space. Quantised outputs are generated by the system according to a given partition of the state-space, while inputs are arbitrary sequences of symbols in a finite alphabet, which are associated to specific actions on the system. Our main results are obtained under some contractivity hypotheses. The problem of left invertibility, i.e. recovering an unknown input sequence from the knowledge of the corresponding output string, is addressed using the theory of iterated function systems (IFS), a tool developed for the study of fractals. We show how the IFS naturally associated to a system and the geometric properties of its attractor are linked to the invertibility property of the system. Our main result is a necessary and sufficient condition for left invertibility and uniform left invertibility for joint contractive systems. In addition, an algorithm is proposed to recover inputs from output strings. A few examples are presented to illustrate the application of the proposed method.     

Iterative algorithm to compute the maximal and stabilising solutions of a general class of discrete-time Riccati-type equations

In this article an iterative method to compute the maximal solution and the stabilising solution, respectively, of a wide class of discrete-time nonlinear equations on the linear space of symmetric matrices is proposed. The class of discrete-time nonlinear equations under consideration contains, as special cases, different types of discrete-time Riccati equations involved in various control problems for discrete-time stochastic systems. This article may be viewed as an addendum of the work of Dragan and Morozan (Dragan, V. and Morozan, T. (2009), ‘A Class of Discrete Time Generalized Riccati Equations’, Journal of Difference Equations and Applications, first published on 11 December 2009 (iFirst), doi: 10.1080/10236190802389381) where necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of the maximal solution and stabilising solution of this kind of discrete-time nonlinear equations are given. The aim of this article is to provide a procedure for numerical computation of the maximal solution and the stabilising solution, respectively, simpler than the method based on the Newton–Kantorovich algorithm.     

Global decentralised stabilisation for a class of uncertain large-scale feedforward nonlinear systems

In this paper, the problem of global decentralised stabilisation for a class of uncertain large-scale feedforward nonlinear systems is investigated. The system under consideration is allowed to contain unknown non-Lipschitz continuous nonlinear terms. The design of the global decentralised controllers takes a two steps procedure. First of all, based on the adding a power integrator technique and the homogeneous domination approach a local homogeneous decentralised controller is proposed for each subsystem of the large-scale feedforward nonlinear system. Then, we integrate a series of nested saturation functions with the homogeneous decentralised controllers and adjust the saturation levels to ensure globally asymptotic stability of the closed-loop system. Simulation studies are conducted to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed control method.     

Enhanced feedforward control of non-minimum phase systems for tracking predefined trajectory

This article proposes a novel feedforward controller for non-minimum phase systems by utilising the preview information of the desired trajectory. The performance of the proposed controller is analysed theoretically and verified through the simulation, including comparison with the optimal zero phase error tracking controller and the preview-based stable inversion. The simulation results show that the proposed controller can gain outstanding performance even if the preview time of the desired trajectory is limited.     

Quantised control of nonlinear systems: analysis of robustness to parameter uncertainty,measurement errors,and exogenous disturbances

We propose a variant of the recently introduced strategy for stabilisation with limited information by D. Liberzon and J.P. Hespanha and analyse its robustness properties. We show that, if the nominal plant can be made input-to-state stable with respect to measurement errors, parameter uncertainty and exogenous disturbances, then this robustness is preserved with this quantised feedback. More precisely, if a sufficient bandwidth is available on the communication network, then the resulting closed loop is shown to be semiglobally input-to-state practically stable.     

Time-interval model reduction of bilinear systems

In this paper, a new method for model reduction of bilinear systems is presented. The proposed technique is from the family of gramian-based model reduction methods. The method uses time-interval generalised gramians in the reduction procedure rather than the ordinary generalised gramians and in such a way that it improves the accuracy of the approximation within the time-interval for which the method is applied. The time-interval generalised gramians are the solutions to the generalised time-interval Lyapunov equations. The conditions for these equations to be solvable are derived and an algorithm is proposed to solve these equations iteratively. The method is further illustrated with the help of two illustrative examples. The numerical results show that the method is more accurate than its previous counterpart which is based on the ordinary gramians.     

Hierarchical design of an electro-hydraulic actuator based on robust LPV methods

The paper proposes a hierarchical control design of an electro-hydraulic actuator, which is used to improve the roll stability of vehicles. The purpose of the control system is to generate a reference torque, which is required by the vehicle dynamic control. The control-oriented model of the actuator is formulated in two subsystems. The high-level hydromotor is described in a linear form, while the low-level spool valve is a polynomial system. These subsystems require different control strategies. At the high level, a linear parameter-varying control is used to guarantee performance specifications. At the low level, a control Lyapunov-function-based algorithm, which creates discrete control input values of the valve, is proposed. The interaction between the two subsystems is guaranteed by the spool displacement, which is control input at the high level and must be tracked at the low-level control. The spool displacement has physical constraints, which must also be incorporated into the control design. The robust design of the high-level control incorporates the imprecision of the low-level control as an uncertainty of the system.     

Finite-time stability analysis of impulsive discrete-time switched systems with nonlinear perturbation

The problem of finite-time stability for a class of discrete-time switched systems in the presence of both non-Lipschitz perturbation and impulse effects is studied in this paper. Based on the average dwell-time approach, a criterion is proposed which ensures that the system’s state trajectory remains in a bounded region of the state space over a pre-specified finite-time interval if we impose a bound on the initial condition. It is shown that the finite-time stability degree could be greater than one, which is quite different from the existing results for asymptotic stability. Moreover, the total activation time of the Schur stable subsystems does not need to be greater than that of the unstable subsystems. A numerical example is presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed design method.     

Approximate controllability of nonlinear stochastic impulsive systems with control acting on the nonlinear terms

This paper is concerned with the approximate controllability of the stochastic impulsive system with control acting on the nonlinear terms. In the case that the nonlinear terms are dependent on the control, the control cannot be expressed explicitly and analysed. In this situation, we generate the control sequence by the approximate equations and give the properties of the control sequence and the driven solution sets. Some discussions on the assumptions are given to impose on the system. The Hausdorff measure is adopted to relax the requirement of the compactness condition. It is also shown that under some sufficient conditions the stochastic impulsive system is approximately controllable without the requirement of the controllability of the associated linear system. The results of this paper can be degraded into special cases and coincide with some existing ones.     

Observer-based fault-tolerant control for a class of nonlinear networked control systems

This paper presents a fault-tolerant control (FTC) scheme for nonlinear systems which are connected in a networked control system. The nonlinear system is first transformed into two subsystems such that the unobservable part is affected by a fault and the observable part is unaffected. An observer is then designed which gives state estimates using a Luenberger observer and also estimates unknown parameter of the system; this helps in fault estimation. The FTC is applied in the presence of sampling due to the presence of a network in the loop. The controller gain is obtained using linear-quadratic regulator technique. The methodology is applied on a mechatronic system and the results show satisfactory performance.