Asymptotic Stability and Finite‐Time Stability of Networked Control Systems: Analysis and Synthesis

This paper focuses on the problems of asymptotic stability and finite‐time stability (FTS) analysis, along with the state feedback controller design for networked control systems (NCSs) with consideration of both network‐induced delay and packet dropout. The closed‐loop NCS is modeled as a discrete‐time linear system with a time‐varying, bounded state delay. Sufficient conditions for the asymptotic stability and the FTS of the closed‐loop NCS are provided, respectively. Based on the stability analysis results, a mixed controller design method, which guarantees the asymptotic stability of the closed‐loop NCS in the usual case and the FTS of the closed‐loop NCS in the unusual case (that is, in some particular time intervals, large state delay occurs), is presented. A numerical example is provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed mixed controller design method.     

Valve Position‐based Control at Engine Key‐on of an Electro‐mechanical Valve Actuator for Camless Engines: A Robust Controller Tuning Via Bifurcation Analysis

Electro‐mechanical valve actuators (EMVA) formed by two opposed electromagnets and two balanced springs are appealing solutions to implement advanced combustion concepts for camless engines. A crucial control problem for this valve actuator regards the first valve lift manoeuvre (termed 'first catching') to be rapidly performed after each insertion of the engine ignition key, when the EMVA rests at middle position where electromagnets offer low control authority. The control problem is challenging due to system nonlinear behavior. Mathematically, the EMVA system can be assumed to be a spring‐mass impacting system affected by a non‐smooth friction force and a dynamic saturated magnetic force. In this work an effective valve position‐based first catching control strategy is proposed to control the strongly nonlinear system. Bifurcation analysis and parameter space simulations are used to study the closed‐loop system behavior and to tune the controller gains as well. The effectiveness of the control approach is validated through numerical simulations of a highly predictive dynamic model of the valve actuator developed by authors in a previous work.     

Distributed reliable H∞ consensus control for a class of multi‐agent systems under switching networks: A topology‐based average dwell time approach

This paper investigates the problem of distributed reliable H_∞ consensus control for high‐order networked agent systems with actuator faults and switching undirected topologies. The Lipschitz nonlinearities, several types of actuator faults, and exogenous disturbances are considered in subsystems. Suppose the communication network of the multi‐agent systems may switch among finite connected graphs. By utilizing the relative state information of neighbors, a new distributed adaptive reliable consensus protocol is presented for actuator failure compensations in individual nodes. Note that the Lyapunov function for error systems may not decrease as the communication network is time‐varying; as a result, the existing distributed adaptive control technique cannot be applied directly. To overcome this difficulty, the topology‐based average dwell time approach is introduced to deal with switching jumps. By applying topology‐based average dwell time approach and Lyapunov theory, the distributed controller design condition is given in terms of LMIs. It is shown that the proposed scheme can guarantee that the reliable H_∞ consensus problem is solvable in the presence actuator faults and external disturbance. Finally, two numerical examples are given the effectiveness of the proposed theoretical results. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.