Trigger‐based tracking control for a class of uncertain nonlinear systems via an event‐triggered extended state observer

An event‐triggered observer‐based output feedback control issue together with triggered input is investigated for a class of uncertain nonlinear systems subject to unknown external disturbances. Two separate event‐triggered conditions are located on the measurement channel and control channel, respectively. An event‐triggered extended state observer (ETESO) is employed to estimate unmeasurable states and compensate uncertainties and disturbances in real time while it is not required for real‐time output measurement. Then, combined with backstepping method and active disturbance rejection control, an output feedback control scheme is proposed, where an event‐triggered input is developed for reducing the communication rate between the controller and the actuator. The triggered instants are determined by a time‐varying event‐triggered condition. Two simulations, including a numerical example and an permanent‐magnet motor, are illustrated to verify the effectiveness of the proposed schemes.     

OPTIMAL REJECTION WITH ZERO STEADY‐STATE ERROR OF SINUSOIDAL DISTURBANCES FOR TIME‐DELAY SYSTEMS

This paper studies the problem of optimal rejection with zero steady‐state error of sinusoidal disturbances for linear systems with time‐delay. Based on the internal model principle, a disturbance compensator is constructed to counterbalance the external sinusoidal disturbances, so that the original system can be transformed into an augmented system without disturbances. Then, with the introduction of a sensitivity parameter and expanding power series around it, the optimal disturbance rejection problem can be simplified to the problem of solving an infinite sum of a linear optimal control series without time‐delay or disturbance. The optimal control law for disturbance rejection with zero steady‐state error consists of accurate linear state feedback terms and a time‐delay compensating term, which is an infinite sum of an adjoint vector series. In the presented approach, iteration is required only for the time‐delay compensation series. By intercepting a finite sum of the compensation series, we obtain an approximate physically realizable optimal control law that avoids complex calculation. A numerical simulation shows that the algorithm is effective and easy to implement.     

Time‐varying input delay compensation for nonlinear systems with additive disturbance: An output feedback approach

This paper addresses the output feedback tracking control of a class of multiple‐input and multiple‐output nonlinear systems subject to time‐varying input delay and additive bounded disturbances. Based on the backstepping design approach, an output feedback robust controller is proposed by integrating an extended state observer and a novel robust controller, which uses a desired trajectory‐based feedforward term to achieve an improved model compensation and a robust delay compensation feedback term based on the finite integral of the past control values to compensate for the time‐varying input delay. The extended state observer can simultaneously estimate the unmeasurable system states and the additive disturbances only with the output measurement and delayed control input. The proposed controller theoretically guarantees prescribed transient performance and steady‐state tracking accuracy in spite of the presence of time‐varying input delay and additive bounded disturbances based on Lyapunov stability analysis by using a Lyapunov‐Krasovskii functional. A specific study on a 2‐link robot manipulator is performed; based on the system model and the proposed design procedure, a suitable controller is developed, and comparative simulation results are obtained to demonstrate the effectiveness of the developed control scheme.     

Composite disturbance‐observer‐based control and H ∞ control for nonlinear time‐delay systems

A novel type of control scheme combined the distance‐observer‐based control (DOBC) with H_∞ control is proposed for a class of nonlinear time‐delay systems subject to disturbances. The disturbances are supposed to include two parts. One in the input channel is generated by an exogenous system with uncertainty, which can represent the harmonic signals with modeling perturbations. The other is supposed to have the bounded H₂ norm. The disturbance observers based on regional pole placement and D‐stability theory are presented, which can be designed separately from the controller design. By integrating disturbance‐observer‐based control with H_∞ control laws, the disturbances can be rejected and attenuated, simultaneously, the desired dynamic performances can be guaranteed for nonlinear time‐delay systems with unknown nonlinear dynamics. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley and Sons Asia Pte Ltd and Chinese Automatic Control Society     

Discrete‐time repetitive controller for time‐delay systems with disturbance observer

A novel discrete‐time repetitive controller design for time‐delay systems subject to a periodic reference and exogenous periodic disturbances is presented. The main idea behind the proposed approach is to take advantage of the plant delay in the controller design, and not to compensate for the effect of this delay. To facilitate this concept, we introduce an appropriate time‐delay and a compensator in a positive feedback connection with the plant, such that a generator for periodic signals is constructed. Then a proportional controller is used to stabilize the closed‐loop system. The tracking control capability is thus guaranteed according to the internal model principle (IMP). In addition, to attenuate external periodic disturbances, a disturbance observer (DO) is developed to simultaneously achieve reference tracking and disturbance rejection. The possible fractional delay due to the digital discretization is handled by using a fractional delay filter approximation. The proposed controller has a simple structure, in which only a proportional parameter and a low‐pass filter are required to be chosen. The closed‐loop stability conditions and a robustness analysis under model uncertainties are studied. Numerical simulations and practical experiments on a servo motor system are conducted to verify the feasibility and simplicity of the proposed controller. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley and Sons Asia Pte Ltd and Chinese Automatic Control Society     

Composite stratified anti‐disturbance control for a class of MIMO discrete‐time systems with nonlinearity

Anti‐disturbance control and estimation problem are investigated for nonlinear system subject to multi‐source disturbances. The disturbances classified model is proposed based on the error and noise analysis of priori knowledge. The disturbance observers are constructed separately from the controller design to estimate the disturbance with partial known information. By integrating disturbance‐observer‐based control with discrete‐time sliding‐mode control (DSMC), a novel type of composite stratified anti‐disturbance control scheme is presented for a class of multiple‐input–multiple‐output discrete‐time systems with known and unknown nonlinear dynamics, respectively. Simulations for a flight control system are given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the results compared with the previous schemes. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Reaction wheel fault‐tolerant finite‐time control for spacecraft attitude tracking without unwinding

This article proposes fault‐tolerant finite‐time attitude tracking control of a rigid spacecraft actuated by four reaction wheels without unwinding problem in the presence of external disturbances, uncertain inertia parameter, and actuator faults. First, a novel antiunwinding finite‐time attitude tracking control law is derived with a designed control signal which works within a known actuator‐magnitude constraint using a continuous nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode (NFTSM) concept. Second, a finite‐time disturbance observer (FTDO) is introduced to estimate a lumped disturbance due to external disturbances, uncertain inertia parameter, actuator faults, and input saturation. Third, a composite controller is developed which consists of a feedback control based on the continuous NFTSM method and compensation term based on the FTDO. The global finite‐time stability is proved using Lyapunov stability theory. Moreover, the singularity and unwinding phenomenon are avoided. Simulation results are conducted under actuator constraints in the presence of external disturbances, inertia uncertainty, and actuator faults and results are illustrated to show the effectiveness of the proposed method. In addition, to show the superiority of the proposed control method over the recently reported control methods, comparative analysis is also presented.     

Robust Adaptive Output‐Feedback Dynamic Surface Control of a Class of Nonlinear Systems with Unmodeled Dynamics

This paper presents a robust adaptive output‐feedback dynamic surface control (DSC) for a class of nonlinear systems with unmodeled dynamics or/and uncertain time‐varying disturbances. Based on traditional K‐filters, the proposed adaptive DSC scheme is able to guarantee semi‐global stability of the closed‐loop system without applying any approximation techniques. The adaptive law is necessary only at the first design step, which, together with the introduction of a first‐order filter at each design step, makes the control law easy to implement. Moreover, it is shown that the tracking error can converge to an arbitrarily small residual set by adjusting only one design parameter.     

On input‐to‐state stability of rigid‐body attitude control with quaternion representation

The concept of input‐to‐state stability (ISS) is important in robust control, as the state of an ISS system subject to disturbances can be stably regulated to a small region around the origin. In this study, the ISS property of the rigid‐body attitude system with quaternion representation is thoroughly investigated. It has been known that the closed loop with continuous controllers is not ISS with respect to arbitrarily small external disturbances. To deal with this problem, hybrid proportional‐derivative controllers with hysteresis are proposed to render the attitude system ISS. The controller is far from new, but it is investigated in a new aspect. To illustrate the applications of the results about ISS, 2 new robust hybrid controllers are designed. In the case of large bounded time‐varying disturbances, the hybrid proportional‐derivative controller is designed to incorporate a saturated high‐gain feedback term, and arbitrarily small ultimate bounds of the state can be obtained; in the case of constant disturbances, a hybrid adaptive controller is proposed, which is robust against small estimate error of inertia matrix. Finally, simulations are conducted to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed control strategies.     

Static output feedback sliding mode control for time‐varying delay systems with time‐delayed nonlinear disturbances

In this paper, a robust stabilization problem for a class of linear time‐varying delay systems with disturbances is studied using sliding mode techniques. Both matched and mismatched disturbances, involving time‐varying delay, are considered. The disturbances are nonlinear and have nonlinear bounds which are employed for the control design. A sliding surface is designed and the stability of the corresponding sliding motion is analysed based on the Razumikhin Theorem. Then a static output feedback sliding mode control with time delay is synthesized to drive the system to the sliding surface in finite time. Conservatism is reduced by using features of sliding mode control and systems structure. Simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed approach. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Event‐triggered control for discrete‐time linear systems subject to bounded disturbance

This paper considers event‐triggering controller design for directly observable discrete‐time linear systems subject to bounded disturbances. The main control objective is diminishing the influence aroused by the disturbances despite a reduction of the communication. Criteria are given to design feedback controllers in order to guarantee that systems are uniformly ultimately bounded in an ellipsoidal‐positive invariant set, which is used as an estimate of control performance for disturbance rejection. An optimization for minimizing the ellipsoidal‐positive invariant set is achieved by synthesizing the feedback control gain and the given event‐triggering conditions in LMIs. The effectiveness and applicability of the controller are illustrated by simulations and experimental implementations. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Delay‐range‐dependent control of nonlinear time‐delay systems under input saturation

This paper describes a delay‐range‐dependent local state feedback controller synthesis approach providing estimation of the region of stability for nonlinear time‐delay systems under input saturation. By employing a Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional, properties of nonlinear functions, local sector condition and Jensen's inequality, a sufficient condition is derived for stabilization of nonlinear systems with interval delays varying within a range. Novel solutions to the delay‐range‐dependent and delay‐dependent stabilization problems for linear and nonlinear time‐delay systems, respectively, subject to input saturation are derived as specific scenarios of the proposed control strategy. Also, a delay‐rate‐independent condition for control of nonlinear systems in the presence of input saturation with unknown delay‐derivative bound information is established. And further, a robust state feedback controller synthesis scheme ensuring L₂ gain reduction from disturbance to output is devised to address the problem of the stabilization of input‐constrained nonlinear time‐delay systems with varying interval lags. The proposed design conditions can be solved using linear matrix inequality tools in connection with conventional cone complementary linearization algorithms. Simulation results for an unstable nonlinear time‐delay network and a large‐scale chemical reactor under input saturation and varying interval time‐delays are analyzed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Output feedback preview control for polytopic uncertain discrete‐time systems with time‐varying delay

This paper considers the preview tracking control problem of polytopic uncertain discrete‐time systems with a time‐varying delay subject to a previewable reference signal. First, a model transformation is employed and a discrete‐time system with a time‐invariant delay and an external disturbance is obtained. The difference operator method can be extended to derive an augmented error system that includes future information on the reference signal. Then, a previewable reference signal is fully utilized through reformulation of the output equation while considering the output feedback. Based on the small gain theorem, a static output feedback controller with preview actions is designed such that the output can asymptotically track the reference signal. Finally, numerical simulation examples also illustrate the superiority of the desired preview controller for the uncertain system in the paper.     

Active disturbance rejection control approach to output‐feedback stabilization of lower triangular nonlinear systems with stochastic uncertainty

In this paper, we apply the active disturbance rejection control approach to output‐feedback stabilization for uncertain lower triangular nonlinear systems with stochastic inverse dynamics and stochastic disturbance. We first design an extended state observer (ESO) to estimate both unmeasured states and stochastic total disturbance that includes unknown system dynamics, unknown stochastic inverse dynamics, external stochastic disturbance, and uncertainty caused by the deviation of control parameter from its nominal value. The stochastic total disturbance is then compensated in the feedback loop. The constant gain and the time‐varying gain are used in ESO design separately. The mean square practical stability for the closed‐loop system with constant gain ESO and the mean square asymptotic stability with time‐varying gain ESO are developed, respectively. Some numerical simulations are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed output‐feedback control scheme. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Feedback passification of switched stochastic time‐delay systems with multiple disturbances via DOBC

This paper is concerned with the problem of feedback passification for switched stochastic time‐delay systems with multiple disturbances subject to mode‐dependent average dwell‐time switching. The multiple disturbances are composed of two parts: one is given through an exogenous system and the other is described in the form of norm‐bounded vector. A disturbance observer is constructed to estimate an exogenous disturbance. Then, a state feedback controller that includes the estimation value is designed to guarantee the passivity of the closed‐loop system. The observer and controller gains are developed via linear matrix inequalities. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified through a numerical example and an application example to PWM‐driven boost converter.     

Robust control of robot manipulators based on uncertainty and disturbance estimation

In this work, uncertainty and disturbance estimation (UDE) based robust trajectory tracking controller for rigid link manipulators was proposed. The UDE was employed to estimate the composite uncertainty that comprises the effects of system nonlinearities, external disturbances, and parametric uncertainties. A feedback linearization based controller was designed for trajectory tracking, and the same was augmented by the UDE‐estimated uncertainties to achieve robustness. The resulting controller however required measurement of joint velocities apart from the joint positions. To address the issue, an observer that employed the UDE‐estimated uncertainties for robustness was proposed, giving rise to the UDE‐based controller–observer structure. Closed‐loop stability of the overall system was established. The notable feature of the proposed design was that it neither required accurate plant model nor any information about the uncertainty. Also, the design needed only joint position measurements for its implementation. To demonstrate the effectiveness, simulation results of the proposed approach as applied to the trajectory tracking control of two‐link robotic manipulator and comparison of its performance with some of the well‐known existing controllers were presented. Lastly, hardware implementation of the proposed design for trajectory control of Quanser's single‐link flexible joint module was carried out, and it was shown that the proposed strategy offered a viable approach for designing implementable robust controllers for robots. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

BIBO stability and stabilization of networked control systems with short time‐varying delays

This paper presents a robust control approach to solve the stability and stabilization problems for networked control systems (NCSs) with short time‐varying delays. A new discrete‐time linear uncertain system model is proposed to describe the NCS, and the uncertainty of the network‐induced delay is transformed into the uncertainty of the system matrix. Based on the obtained uncertain system model, a sufficient BIBO stability condition for the closed‐loop NCS is derived by applying the small gain theorem. The obtained stability condition establishes a quantitative relation between the BIBO stability of the closed‐loop NCS and two delay parameters, namely, the delay upper bound and the delay variation range bound. Moreover, design procedures for the state feedback stabilizing controllers are also presented. An illustrative example is provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

L2‐Gain Analysis for Synchronization of Stochastic Complex Network with Switched Topology and Time‐Varying Delay

We investigate the exponential stability and L₂‐gain analysis for the synchronization of stochastic complex networks under average dwell time switched topology with consideration of external disturbance, internal noise and fast time‐varying delay in the synchronized process. Based on the proposed stochastic network, a new L₂‐gain synchronization is proposed to solve the mean‐square exponential stable under switched topology with an H_∞ performance from the extrinsic disturbances to the synchronization error. The obtained results are applicable for the fast time‐varying case with larger‐than‐1 delay derivative. Finally, numerical simulations are performed to demonstrate the effectiveness of our strategies.     

Stabilization of a Timoshenko Beam With Disturbance Observer‐Based Time Varying Boundary Controls

This paper is concerned with the boundary feedback stabilization for a Timoshenko beam with external disturbances in the boundary inputs. Based on the idea of active disturbance rejection controls, extended state observers with the time‐varying gains are designed to estimate disturbances and then a control strategy is presented by canceling the disturbances via the feedback channels. The well‐posedness of the resulting closed‐loop system is proved by the dual theory and admissibility theory, and the relationship between the stability and the disturbance is interpreted by Lyapunov's second method. At the end, the numerical experiment illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy.