Robust H∞ observer design of linear time-delay systems with parametric uncertainty

This paper deals with the problem of H_∞ observer design for a class of uncertain linear systems with delayed state and parameter uncertainties. This problem aims at designing the linear state observers such that, for all admissible parameter uncertainties, the observation process remains robustly stable and the transfer function from exogenous disturbances to error state outputs meets the prespecified H_∞ norm upper bound constraint, independently of the time delay. The time delay is assumed to be unknown, and the parameter uncertainties are allowed to be norm-bounded and appear in all the matrices of the state-space model. An effective matrix inequality methodology is developed to solve the proposed problem. We derive the conditions for the existence of the desired robust H_∞ observers, and then characterize the analytical expression of these observers in terms of some free parameters. A numerical example demonstrates the validity and applicability of the present approach.