Semantic link‐based constructing of multi‐dimensional service resource space for collaboration

Automatic service collaboration calls for the development of semantically structured service resource space to maximize the utility of Web services. Semantic links contain rich semantic information that may indicate important relationships among services. We provided an effective method for constructing multi‐dimensional service resource space based on semantic links for service collaboration, in which similar and related semantic relationship between services are considered. We first clustered services with similar and related relations on the basis of a hierarchical structure respectively and then took advantage of the resource space model to construct multi‐dimensional service resource space. Finally, experimental results show the effectiveness of the method. Concurrency and Computation: Practice and Experience, 2012.© 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Finite‐time stabilization for a class of nonlinear systems with time‐varying delay

This paper investigates the finite‐time stabilization problem for a class of nonlinear systems with time‐varying delay. Under suitable assumptions, a new state feedback control law is designed by using the adding a power integrator technique. By constructing an appropriate Lyapunov‐Krasovskii functional, it is shown that the corresponding closed‐loop system is finite‐time stable. Two simulation examples are given to verify the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.     

Building design‐time and run‐time knowledge for QoS‐based component assembly

Modern software systems are required to dynamically adapt to changing workloads, scenarios, and objectives and to achieve a certain Quality of Service (QoS). Guaranteeing QoS requirements is not trivial, as run‐time uncertainty might invalidate the design‐time rationale, where software components have been selected by means of off‐line analysis. In this work, we propose a QoS‐based feedback approach that makes a combined use of design‐time predictions and run‐time measurements to manage QoS data over time and support software architects while selecting software components that best fit QoS requirements. We illustrate the feasibility and efficacy of the approach on a case study, where the quantitative evaluation shows how the analysis effectively identifies the sources of QoS violations and indicates possible solutions to achieve QoS requirements.     

Enhancing the settling time estimation of a class of fixed‐time stable systems

In this paper, we provide a new nonconservative upper bound for the settling time of a class of fixed‐time stable systems. To expose the value and the applicability of this result, we present four main contributions. First, we revisit the well‐known class of fixed‐time stable systems, to show the conservatism of the classical upper estimate of its settling time. Second, we provide the smallest constant that the uniformly upper bounds the settling time of any trajectory of the system under consideration. Third, introducing a slight modification of the previous class of fixed‐time systems, we propose a new predefined‐time convergent algorithm where the least upper bound of the settling time is set a priori as a parameter of the system. At last, we design a class of predefined‐time controllers for first‐ and second‐order systems based on the exposed stability analysis. Simulation results highlight the performance of the proposed scheme regarding settling time estimation compared to existing methods.     

Worst‐case execution time analysis for a Java processor

In this paper, we propose a solution for a worst‐case execution time (WCET) analyzable Java system: a combination of a time‐predictable Java processor and a tool that performs WCET analysis at Java bytecode level. We present a Java processor, called JOP, designed for time‐predictable execution of real‐time tasks. The execution time of bytecodes, the instructions of the Java virtual machine, is known to cycle accuracy for JOP. Therefore, JOP simplifies the low‐level WCET analysis. A method cache, which fills whole Java methods into the cache, simplifies cache analysis. The WCET analysis tool is based on integer linear programming. The tool performs the low‐level analysis at the bytecode level and integrates the method cache analysis. An integrated data‐flow analysis performs receiver‐type analysis for dynamic method dispatches and loop‐bound analysis. Furthermore, a model checking approach to WCET analysis is presented where the method cache can be exactly simulated. The combination of the time‐predictable Java processor and the WCET analysis tool is evaluated with standard WCET benchmarks and three real‐time applications. The WCET friendly architecture of JOP and the integrated method cache analysis yield tight WCET bounds. Comparing the exact, but expensive, model checking‐based analysis of the method cache with the static approach demonstrates that the static approximation of the method cache is sufficiently tight for practical purposes. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On the design of nonautonomous fixed‐time controllers with a predefined upper bound of the settling time

Recently, there has been a great deal of attention in a class of finite‐time stable dynamical systems, called fixed‐time stable, that exhibit uniform convergence with respect to its initial condition, that is, there exists an upper bound for the settling‐time (UBST) function, independent of the initial condition of the system. Of particular interest is the development of stabilizing controllers where the desired UBST can be selected a priori by the user since it allows the design of controllers to satisfy real‐time constraints. Unfortunately, existing methodologies for the design of controllers for fixed‐time stability exhibit the following drawbacks: on the one hand, in methods based on autonomous systems, either the UBST is unknown or its estimate is very conservative, leading to over‐engineered solutions; on the other hand, in methods based on time‐varying gains, the gain tends to infinity, which makes these methods unrealizable in practice. To bridge these gaps, we introduce a design methodology to stabilize a perturbed chain of integrators in a fixed‐time, with the desired UBST that can be set arbitrarily tight. Our approach consists of redesigning autonomous stabilizing controllers by adding time‐varying gains. However, unlike existing methods, we provide sufficient conditions such that the time‐varying gain remains bounded, making our approach realizable in practice.     

Time‐varying feedback for stabilization in prescribed finite time

This paper provides a time‐varying feedback alternative to control of finite‐time systems, which is referred to as “prescribed‐time control,” exhibiting several superior features: (i) such time‐varying gain–based prescribed‐time control is built upon regular state feedback rather than fractional‐power state feedback, thus resulting in smooth (C^m) control action everywhere during the entire operation of the system; (ii) the prescribed‐time control is characterized with uniformly prespecifiable convergence time that can be preassigned as needed within the physically allowable range, making it literally different from not only the traditional finite‐time control (where the finite settling time is determined by a system initial condition and a number of design parameters) but also the fixed‐time control (where the settling time is subject to certain constraints and thus can only be specified within the corresponding range); and (iii) the prescribed‐time control relies only on regular Lyapunov differential inequality instead of fractional Lyapunov differential inequality for stability analysis and thus avoids the difficulty in controller design and stability analysis encountered in the traditional finite‐time control for high‐order systems.     

Fixed‐time synchronization for complex‐valued BAM neural networks with time delays

In this paper, the fixed‐time synchronization for complex‐valued bidirectional associative memory (BAM) neural networks with time delays is studied. Based on the fixed‐time stability, the Lyapunov functional method and some inequality techniques, a new criterion is presented to guarantee that the addressed systems achieve synchronization in fixed time and a more accurate estimation independent of the initial conditions is given for the settling time. Meanwhile, a new nonlinear delayed controller different from the existing ones is designed. In the end, two numerical examples are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the obtained result.     

Finite‐time robust simultaneous stabilization of a set of nonlinear time‐delay systems

This paper investigates the finite‐time robust simultaneous stabilization problem of a set of nonlinear time‐delay systems with general forms and proposes some new simultaneous stabilization results. First, by developing an equivalent form and applying augmented technique, this paper obtains an augmented equivalent form of the original systems. Secondly, based on the equivalent form, we study finite‐time simultaneous stabilization problem and present some new stabilization results by constructing some suitable Lyapunov functionals. Thirdly, using the simultaneous stabilization results obtained, this paper investigates the finite‐time robust simultaneous stabilization problem for the set systems and proposes a delay‐dependent robust simultaneous stabilization result. Finally, the study of an illustrative example shows that the results obtained by this paper work well in the finite‐time robust simultaneous stabilization the set systems. It is shown that, by using the method in this paper, the developed conditions do not contain delay terms, which can avoid solving nonlinear mixed matrix inequalities and reduce effectively computational burden in studying nonlinear time‐delay systems.     

Fixed‐time attitude tracking control for spacecraft based on adding power integrator technique

In this article, the fixed‐time attitude tracking problem for rigid spacecraft is investigated based on the adding‐a‐power‐integrator control technique. First, a fixed‐time attitude tracking controller is designed to guarantee fixed‐time convergence of tracking errors. Then, by considering the presence of random disturbance and actuator faults, an adaptive fault‐tolerant attitude tracking controller is designed to guarantee tracking errors converge to a residual set of zero in a fixed time. The complete bounds on settling time are derived independently of initial conditions. The simulation results illustrate the highly precise and robust attitude control performance obtained by using the proposed controllers.     

Finite‐time control for LPV systems with parameter‐varying time delays and exogenous disturbances

In this paper, we consider the stability analysis and control synthesis of finite‐time boundedness problems for linear parameter‐varying (LPV) systems subject to parameter‐varying time delays and external disturbances. First, the concepts of uniform finite‐time stability and uniform finite‐time boundedness are introduced to LPV systems. Then, sufficient conditions, which guarantee LPV systems with parameter‐varying time delays finite‐time bounded, are presented by using parameter‐dependent Lyapunov–Krasovskii functionals and free‐weight matrix technologies. Moreover, on the basis of the results on the uniform finite‐time boundedness, the parameter‐dependent state feedback controllers are designed to finite‐time stabilize LPV systems. Both analysis and synthesis conditions are delay‐dependent, and they are formulated in terms of linear matrix inequalities by using efficient interior‐point algorithms. Finally, results obtained in simulation demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Compensation of time‐varying input delay for discrete‐time nonlinear systems

We consider general discrete‐time nonlinear systems (of arbitrary nonlinear growth) with time‐varying input delays and design an explicit predictor feedback controller to compensate the input delay. Such results have been achieved in continuous time, but only under the restriction that the delay rate is bounded by unity, which ensures that the input signal flow does not get reversed, namely, that old inputs are not felt multiple times by the plant (because on such subsequent occasions, the control input acts as a disturbance). For discrete‐time systems, an analogous restriction would be that the input delay is non‐increasing. In this work, we do not impose such a restriction. We provide a design and a global stability analysis that allow the input delay to be arbitrary (containing intervals of increase, decrease, or stagnation) over an arbitrarily long finite period of time. Unlike in the continuous‐time case, the predictor feedback law in the discrete‐time case is explicit. We specialize the result to linear time‐invariant systems and provide an explicit estimate of the exponential decay rate. Carefully constructed examples are provided to illustrate the design and analytical challenges. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Finite‐time stability of linear fractional‐order time‐delay systems

In this paper, a finite‐time stability results of linear delay fractional‐order systems is investigated based on the generalized Gronwall inequality and the Caputo fractional derivative. Sufficient conditions are proposed to the finite‐time stability of the system with the fractional order. Numerical results are given and compared with other published data in the literature to demonstrate the validity of the proposed theoretical results.     

Client ahead‐of‐time compiler for embedded Java platforms

Many embedded Java platforms execute two types of Java classes: those installed statically on the client device and those downloaded dynamically from service providers at run time. For achieving higher performance, the static Java classes can be compiled into machine code by ahead‐of‐time compiler (AOTC) in the server, and the translated machine code can be installed on the client device. Unfortunately, AOTC cannot be applicable to the dynamically downloaded classes. This paper proposes client‐AOTC (c‐AOTC), which performs AOTC on the client device using the just‐in‐time compiler (JITC) module installed on the device, obviating the JITC overhead and complementing the server‐AOTC. The machine code of a method translated by JITC is cached on a persistent memory of the device, and when the method is invoked again in a later run of the program, the machine code is loaded and executed directly without any translation overhead. A major issue in c‐AOTC is relocation because some of the address constants embedded in the cached machine code are not correct when the machine code is loaded and used in a different run; those addresses should be corrected before they are used. Constant pool resolution and inlining complicate the relocation problem, and we propose our solutions. The persistent memory overhead for saving the relocation information is also an issue, and we propose a technique to encode the relocation information and compress the machine code efficiently. We developed a c‐AOTC on Sun's CDC VM reference implementation, and our evaluation results indicate that c‐AOTC can improve the performance significantly, as much as an average of 12% for EEMBC and 4% for SpecJVM98, with a persistent memory overhead of 1% on average. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Distributed fixed‐time attitude coordination control for multiple rigid spacecraft

In this paper, the fixed‐time attitude coordination control for multiple rigid spacecraft under an undirected communication graph is investigated. By using the backstepping technique, the distributed fixed‐time observer, and the method of “adding a power integrator,” a distributed fixed‐time attitude coordination control law is designed for a group of spacecraft. The proposed control scheme is nonsingular and can guarantee a group of rigid spacecraft simultaneously tracking a common desired attitude within fixed time even when the time‐varying reference attitude is available only to a subset of the group members. Rigorous analysis is provided to show that the attitude consensus tracking errors can converge to the origin in finite time which is bounded by a fixed constant independent of initial conditions. Numerical simulations are carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control law.     

Scaled consensus for asynchronous high‐order discrete‐time multiagent systems

This paper investigates the distributed scaled consensus problem of multiple agents with high‐order dynamics under the asynchronous setting, where each agent measures the neighbors' information at certain discrete time instants according to its own clock rather than the whole discrete process and all agents' clocks are independent of each other. Assume that the communication topology can be arbitrarily switched and the information transfer between agents has a time‐varying delay. Under the designed asynchronous distributed control protocol, it is shown that the agents with the same scale will reach a common final state, while the agents with different scales will reach different final states. Moreover, an effective parameters selection strategy is presented for a large number of gain parameters in high‐order multiagent systems based on novel model transformation techniques. Simulation examples are provided to demonstrate the high‐order scaled consensus performances for the agents in the presence of asynchronous setting.     

A specified‐time control framework for control‐affine systems and rigid bodies: A time‐rescaling approach

This paper addresses the specified‐time control problem for control‐affine systems and rigid bodies, wherein the specified‐time duration can be designed in advance according to the task requirements. By using the time‐rescaling approach, a novel framework to solve the specified‐time control problem is proposed, and the original systems are converted to the transformation systems based on which the specified‐time control laws for both control‐affine systems and rigid bodies are studied. Compared with the existing approaches, our proposed specified‐time control laws can be derived from the known stabilization control laws. To our best knowledge, it is the first time that transformation system–based specified‐time control framework for control‐affine system and rigid body dynamics is proposed. To further improve the convergence performance of specified‐time control, a finite‐time attitude synchronization control law for rigid bodies on rotation matrices is proposed, and thereby, the finite‐time–based specified‐time control law is designed eventually. In the end, numerical simulations and SimMechanics experiments are provided to illustrate effectiveness of the theoretical results.     

Quasi‐time‐dependent asynchronous filtering for discrete time switched systems via the event triggering mechanism

This article is concerned with the quasi‐time‐dependent asynchronous filter design problem for a class of discrete‐time switched systems via the event‐triggering mechanism. Applying the quasi‐time‐dependent Lyapunov functions and the mode‐dependent average dwell time technique, an asynchronous filter is designed with a weighted performance index; the filter parameter matrices are quasi‐time‐dependent in each event‐triggering‐dependent sampling interval; both cases (Case 1: no more than one switching, Case 2: multiple switchings) are taken into account in this sampling interval, by which the assumption, that the maximal asynchronous period is not larger than the minimal dwell time, is relaxed in this article. Simulation examples are given to show the less conservatism and effectiveness of the proposed results.     

Reachable set estimation for discrete‐time linear systems with time delays

This paper is concerned with the reachable set estimation problem for discrete‐time linear systems with multiple constant delays and bounded peak inputs. The objective is to check whether there exists a bounded set that contains all the system states under zero initial conditions. First, delay‐dependent conditions for the solvability of the addressed problem are derived by employing a novel Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional. The obtained conditions are expressed in terms of matrix inequalities, which are linear when only one scalar variable is fixed. On the basis of these conditions, an ellipsoid containing the reachable set of the considered system is obtained. An approach for determining the smallest ellipsoid is also provided. Second, the approach and results developed in the first stage are generalized to the case of systems with polytopic parameter uncertainties, and delay‐dependent conditions are given in the form of relaxed matrix inequalities. Finally, two numerical examples are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methods. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Robust state‐feedback control of stochastic state‐multiplicative discrete‐time linear switched systems with dwell time

Linear discrete‐time switched stochastic systems are considered, where the problems of mean square stability, stochastic l₂‐gain and state‐feedback control design are treated and solved. Solutions are obtained for both nominal and polytopic‐type uncertain systems. In all these problems, the switching obeys a dwell time constraint. In our solution, to each subsystem of the switched system, a Lyapunov function is assigned that is nonincreasing at the switching instants. The latter function is allowed to vary piecewise linearly, starting at the end of the previous switch instant, and it becomes time invariant after the dwell. In order to guarantee asymptotic stability, we require the Lyapunov function to be negative between consecutive switchings. We thus obtain Linear Matrix Inequalities conditions. Based on the solution of the stochastic l₂‐gain problem, we derive a solution to the state‐feedback control design, where we treat a variety of special cases. Being affine in the system matrices, all the aforementioned solutions are extended to the uncertain polytopic case. The proposed theory is demonstrated by a practical example taken from the field of flight control. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.