Observer‐based decentralized adaptive control for large‐scale pure‐feedback systems with unknown time‐delayed nonlinear interactions

This paper presents an approximation design for a decentralized adaptive output‐feedback control of large‐scale pure‐feedback nonlinear systems with unknown time‐varying delayed interconnections. The interaction terms are bounded by unknown nonlinear bounding functions including unmeasurable state variables of subsystems. These bounding functions together with the algebraic loop problem of virtual and actual control inputs in the pure‐feedback form make the output‐feedback controller design difficult and challenging. To overcome the design difficulties, the observer‐based dynamic surface memoryless local controller for each subsystem is designed using appropriate Lyapunov‐Krasovskii functionals, the function approximation technique based on neural networks, and the additional first‐order low‐pass filter for the actual control input. It is shown that all signals in the total controlled closed‐loop system are semiglobally uniformly bounded and control errors converge to an adjustable neighborhood of the origin. Finally, simulation examples are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed decentralized control scheme. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Robust nonlinear control of a three-tank system using finite-time disturbance observers

A finite-time disturbance observer-based robust control method is proposed for output tracking of the Inteco threetank system in the presence of mismatched uncertainties. The controller is designed in a backstepping manner. At each step of the virtual controller design, a robust feedback controller with some effective nonlinear damping terms is designed so that the system states remain in the feasible domain. The nonlinear uncertainty is compensated by a finite-time disturbance observer. And to avoid the shortcoming of “explosion of terms”, the dynamic surface control technique which employs a low-pass filter is adopted at each step of the virtual controller design. Attention is paid to reducing the measurement noise effects and to initialization technique of the system states and reference output trajectory. Theoretical analysis is performed to clarify the control performance. And the theoretical results are verified based on the experimental studies on the real Inteco three-tank system.     

Robust‐decentralized tracking control for a class of uncertain MIMO nonlinear systems with time‐varying delays

A new control design method based on signal compensation is proposed for a class of uncertain multi‐input multi‐output (MIMO) nonlinear systems in block‐triangular form with nonlinear uncertainties, unknown virtual control coefficients, strongly coupled interconnections, time‐varying delays, and external disturbances. By this method, the controller design is performed in a backstepping manner. At each step of backstepping procedure, a nominal virtual controller is first designed to get desired output tracking for the nominal disturbance‐free subsystem, and then a robust virtual compensator is designed to restrain the effect of the uncertainties, delays involved in the subsystem, and the couplings among the subsystems. The designed controller is linear and time‐invariant, so the explosion of complexity in the control law is avoid. It is proved that robust stability and robust practical tracking property of the closed‐loop system can be ensured, and the tracking errors can be made as small as desired. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

基于非线性干扰观测器的翼伞鲁棒反步跟踪控制

针对干扰条件下的无人翼伞飞行器路径跟踪控制问题,提出一种基于非线性干扰观测器的反馈增益鲁棒反步控制方法.采用二阶跟踪-微分器设计干扰观测器对系统复合干扰进行估计和补偿,设计了反馈增益反步跟踪控制律,通过合理设计增益参数,消除了部分复杂非线性项,避免了虚拟量高阶导数问题,简化了控制器形式.根据Lyapunov理论设计鲁棒反馈补偿项,在保证稳定性的同时提高了系统的鲁棒性.仿真实验结果验证了所提出方法的有效性.     

Heterogeneous consensus of higher‐order multi‐agent systems with mismatched uncertainties using sliding mode control

A robust consensus controller is proposed for heterogeneous higher‐order nonlinear multi‐agent systems, when the agent dynamics are involved with mismatched uncertainties. A distributed consensus protocol based on a time‐varying nonhomogeneous finite‐time disturbance observer and sliding mode control is designed to realize the network consensus of higher‐order multi‐agent systems. The time‐varying finite‐time disturbance observer overcomes the problem of peaking value near the initial time caused by the constant gain one and is designed to estimate the uncertainties and to mitigate the effect of mismatched uncertainties during the sliding mode. To eliminate the chattering phenomenon and ensure finite‐time convergence to the sliding surface, the control law is designed by using the super twisting algorithm. Finally numerical simulations are given to illustrate the validity of the proposed method. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Distributed finite‐time formation control for multiple quadrotors via local communications

This paper investigates finite‐time formation tracking control problem for multiple quadrotors with external disturbance. The states of the virtual leader are not available to all the followers and the network topology is described by a directed graph. The model of each quadrotor is divided into position subsystem and attitude subsystem. Firstly, novel distributed finite‐time state observers are designed to estimate the relative state errors between followers and the virtual leader. Secondly, the values of these observers are used to design controllers that achieve finite‐time robust coordinated tracking in the position subsystem. Thirdly, the terminal sliding mode disturbance observers and finite‐time attitude tracking controllers are proposed, respectively, in the attitude subsystem to estimate the external disturbance and achieve attitude tracking control. The finite‐time stability analysis of the control algorithms is carried out using the Lyapunov theory and the homogeneous technique. Finally, the efficiency of the proposed algorithm is illustrated by numerical simulations.     

Straight‐Line Tracking Control of an Agricultural Vehicle with Finite‐Time Control Technique

For the agricultural vehicle straight‐line tracking system, three control algorithms based upon the finite‐time control technique have been proposed to force the vehicle to track a straight line. Without considering the lumped disturbance, a backstepping‐like finite‐time state‐feedback controller is first developed. On this basis, an adaptive state‐feedback controller in conjunction with integral sliding mode is further developed in the presence of the lumped disturbance. Finally, a sliding mode disturbance observer is given to estimate the lumped disturbance, and the composite control scheme is presented. Under the composite controller, the lumped disturbance can be compensated and thus the disturbance rejection property has been significantly improved. Simulation results verify the proposed control algorithms.     

Robust estimation‐free decentralized prescribed performance control of nonaffine nonlinear large‐scale systems

In this paper, a low‐complexity robust estimation‐free decentralized prescribed performance control scheme is proposed and analyzed for nonaffine nonlinear large‐scale systems in the presence of unknown nonlinearity and external disturbance. To tackle the high‐order dynamics of each tracking error subsystem, a time‐varying stable manifold involving the output tracking error and its high‐order derivatives is constructed, which is strictly evolved within the envelope of user‐specialized prescribed performance. Sequentially, a robust decentralized controller is devised for each manifold, under which the output tracking error and its high‐order derivatives are proven to converge asymptotically to a small residual domain with prescribed fast convergence rate. Additionally, no specialized approximation technique, adaptive scheme, and disturbance observer are needed, which alleviates the complexity and difficulty of robust decentralized controller design dramatically. Finally, 3 groups of illustrative examples are used to validate the effectiveness of the proposed low‐complexity robust decentralized control scheme for uncertain nonaffine nonlinear large‐scale systems.     

A robust constrained control approach for flexible air‐breathing hypersonic vehicles

This article investigates the robust adaptive control system design for the longitudinal dynamics of a flexible air‐breathing hypersonic vehicle (FAHV) subject to parametric uncertainties and control input constraints. A combination of back‐stepping and nonlinear disturbance observer (NDO) is utilized for exploiting an adaptive output‐feedback controller to provide robust tracking of velocity and altitude reference trajectories in the presence of flexible effects and system uncertainties. The dynamic surface control is introduced to solve the problem of “explosion of terms.” A new NDO is developed to guarantee the proposed controller's disturbance attenuation ability and to performance robustness against uncertain aerodynamic coefficients. To deal with the problem of actuator saturation, a novel auxiliary system is exploited to compensate the desired control laws. The stability of the presented NDO and controller is analyzed. Simulation results are given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the presented control strategy.     

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.     

Adaptive finite‐time stabilization of nonlinearly parameterized systems subject to mismatching disturbances

This paper gives a first try to the finite‐time control for nonlinear systems with unknown parametric uncertainty and external disturbances. The serious uncertainties generated by unknown parameters are compensated by skillfully using an adaptive control technique. Exact knowledge of the upper bounds of the disturbances is removed by employing a disturbance observer–based control method. Then, based on the disturbance observer–based control, backstepping technique, finite‐time adaptive control, and Lyapunov stability theory, a composite adaptive state‐feedback controller is strictly designed and analyzed, which guarantees the closed‐loop system to be practically finite‐time stable. Finally, both the practical and numerical examples are presented and compared to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.     

Robust observer‐based output feedback controller for nonlinear systems with uncertain triangular and nontriangular nonlinearities and diagonal terms

In this paper, we provide a robust observer‐based output feedback control scheme for a class of nonlinear systems where there are uncertain triangular and nontriangular nonlinearities, nontrivial diagonal terms, and external disturbance. The presence of diagonal terms is the main generalized feature over the existing results. In order to handle the diagonal terms, there is a gain‐scaling factor in the proposed controller. Through the analysis, we show that all states and observer errors of the controlled system remain bounded. Moreover, the ultimate bounds of some states and observer errors can be made (arbitrarily) small by adjusting the gain‐scaling factor reflecting on the structure of nonlinearities and external disturbance. The validity of our control scheme is experimentally verified via the ball position control of an electromagnetic levitation system.     

Continuous output‐feedback finite‐time control for a class of second‐order nonlinear systems with disturbances

In this paper, a solution to the continuous output‐feedback finite‐time control problem is proposed for a class of second‐order MIMO nonlinear systems with disturbances. First, a continuous finite‐time controller is designed to stabilize system states at equilibrium points in finite time, which is proven correct by a constructive Lyapunov function. Next, because only the measured output is available for feedback, a continuous nonlinear observer is presented to reconstruct the total states in finite time and estimate the unknown disturbances. Then, a continuous output‐feedback finite‐time controller is proposed to track the desired trajectory accurately or alternatively converge to an arbitrarily small region in finite time. Finally, proposed methods are applied to robotic manipulators, and simulations are given to illustrate the applicability of the proposed control approach. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Observer‐based finite‐time stabilization for discrete‐time switched singular systems with quadratically inner‐bounded nonlinearities

This paper discusses the observer‐based finite‐time stabilization for discrete‐time switched singular systems with quadratically inner‐bounded nonlinear terms. Firstly, based on the Luenberger‐like observer, by using the average dwell time approach, sufficient conditions are proposed to make closed‐loop systems be regular, be causal, as having a unique solution, and be uniformly finite‐time bounded. Then, a new linear matrix inequality sufficient condition for the existence of an observer‐based controller is obtained by using certain matrix decoupling techniques, and the controller is designed. In this paper, the conditions proposed not only give the observer‐based controller design methods but also guarantee the existence and uniqueness of solution for the systems. Since the quadratically inner‐bounded nonlinearities are more general than Lipschitz nonlinearities and one‐sided Lipschitz nonlinearities, compared with previous works, the proposed controller design methods in this paper are also more general than the existing ones. Finally, numerical examples are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the methods proposed in this paper.     

Nonsingular terminal sliding mode control of nonlinear second‐order systems with input saturation

This paper considers the nonsingular terminal sliding mode (TSM) controller design for a nonlinear second‐order system subject to input saturation. A new nonsingular TSM manifold is constructed by integrating the conventional nonsingular TSM manifold with a saturation function. When the bound of the uncertainty is known, based on the designed TSM manifold, a saturated controller can be designed directly for the nonlinear system. When the bound of the uncertainty is unknown, a disturbance observer is first employed to estimate the uncertainty, followed by constructing a composite controller consisting of a bounded feedback controller and a forward compensator. Theoretical analysis shows that under the proposed two control methods, the states of the closed‐loop system will both converge to zero in finite time. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methods. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Adaptive NN output‐feedback decentralized stabilization for a class of large‐scale stochastic nonlinear strict‐feedback systems

In this paper, the decentralized adaptive neural network (NN) output‐feedback stabilization problem is investigated for a class of large‐scale stochastic nonlinear strict‐feedback systems, which interact through their outputs. The nonlinear interconnections are assumed to be bounded by some unknown nonlinear functions of the system outputs. In each subsystem, only a NN is employed to compensate for all unknown upper bounding functions, which depend on its own output. Therefore, the controller design for each subsystem only need its own information and is more simplified than the existing results. It is shown that, based on the backstepping method and the technique of nonlinear observer design, the whole closed‐loop system can be proved to be stable in probability by constructing an overall state‐quartic and parameter‐quadratic Lyapunov function. The simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Sampled‐data control of a class of uncertain switched nonlinear systems in nonstrict‐feedback form

This paper investigates the stabilization problem of sampled‐data output feedback for a class of uncertain switched nonlinear systems in nonstrict‐feedback form. An observer is designed to estimate the unmeasured states, and a sampled‐data controller is obtained by discretizing the virtual controller that is constructed via the dynamic surface control method. It is proved that the designed sampled‐data controller can render all states of the resulting closed‐loop system to converge to a neighborhood of the origin for the arbitrary switching signal, and an allowable sampling period is also given. Finally, 2 examples are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Approximate finite‐time control for a class of uncertain nonlinear systems with dynamic compensation

In this work, a new robust nonlinear feedback control method with dynamic active compensation is proposed; the active control method has been applied to an integral series of finite‐time single‐input single‐output nonlinear system with uncertainty. In further tracking the closed‐loop stability and nonlinear uncertainty, an extended state observer has been employed to solve the immeasurability and nonlinear uncertainty within a nonlinear system. A singular perturbation theory has been used to solve for the finite‐time stability of the closed‐loop system; furthermore, numerical simulations showed that the robust nonlinear feedback controller tracked the uncertainty in a nonlinear Duffing‐type oscillator and has proven the effectiveness of the approximate finite‐time control strategy proposed. By using an approximate finite‐time control approach with active compensation, the uncertainty in a nonlinear system could be accurately estimated and controlled. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Output‐feedback tracking in causal nonminimum‐phase nonlinear systems using higher‐order sliding modes

Asymptotic output‐feedback tracking in a class of causal nonminimum phase uncertain nonlinear systems is addressed via sliding mode techniques. Sliding mode control is proposed for robust stabilization of the output tracking error in the presence of a bounded disturbance. The output reference profile and the unknown input/disturbance are supposed to be described by unknown linear exogenous systems of a given order. Local asymptotic stability of the output tracking error dynamics along with the boundedness of the internal states are proven. The unstable internal states are estimated asymptotically via the proposed multistage observer that is based on the method of extended system center. A higher‐order sliding mode observer/differentiator is used for the exact estimation of the input–output states in a finite time. The bounded disturbance is reconstructed asymptotically. A numerical example illustrates the efficiency of the proposed output‐feedback tracking approach developed for causal nonminimum phase nonlinear systems. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Global stabilization of a class of cascaded systems with upper‐triangular structures

In this paper, the global stabilization problem of a class of cascaded systems with upper‐triangular structures is considered. On the basis of the forwarding technique, a series of virtual controllers are recursively constructed for the driving subsystem. According to the mild assumption imposed on the driven subsystem, a partial‐state feedback controller is obtained for the entire cascaded nonlinear system by developing a delicate design fashion. It is shown that the obtained state feedback controller will render the entire cascaded nonlinear system globally asymptotically stable. Numerical examples are conducted to validate the proposed control scheme.