Robust cooperative control for multi-agent systems via distributed output regulation

Robust cooperative control for multi-agent systems is considered in this paper, under the framework of the distributed output regulation problem. With some fundamental assumptions, two necessary and sufficient conditions are given for the distributed output regulation problem to be solvable. The algorithm of designing the robust distributed control law is provided, with the help of internal models. It is shown that this robust controller is effective in a neighborhood of the nominal system, which is tolerant of system uncertainties.     

Improved Robust Stability Criteria for Time‐Delay Lur'e System

This paper deals with the problem of the robustly absolute stability for neutral‐type Lur'e systems with mixed time‐varying delay. By combining the piecewise analysis theory with the reciprocally convex method and Wirtinger‐based inequality technology, some new delay‐dependent stability criteria are proposed via a modified Lyapunov‐Krasovskii functional (LKF) approach. The stability conditions can be solved by using standard linear matrix inequality (LMI) convex optimization solvers. The criteria are less conservative than some previous ones. Three numerical examples are presented to show the effectiveness of the proposed approach.     

Robust decentralized output regulation with single or multiple reference signals for uncertain heterogeneous systems

We consider the problem in which N coupled heterogeneous uncertain linear systems aim at tracking one or more reference signals generated by given exosystems under the restriction that not all the systems are directly connected to the exosystems. To tackle this problem, the reference signals are reconstructed via local interaction of the systems among themselves and the exosystems in accordance with the given communication graph. Then, decentralized robust controllers using the reconstructed reference signals are designed and shown to result in a closed‐loop system whose outputs track the prescribed reference signals. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Robust cooperative output regulation under exosystem detectability constraint

ABSTRACT

This paper revisits the robust cooperative output regulation problem for a class of linear uncertain multi-agent systems. In particular, it is assumed here that the agents in the system can only access incomplete measurements of the exosystem, and the local regulated error signals are not available to the agents to be used in control. Under these assumptions, the agents in the system cannot independently reconstruct the exosystem dynamics, or rely on their own local measurements to achieve the objectives of the output regulation problem. The solution to the regulation problem proposed in this paper is a distributed dynamic control law that reconstructs the exosystem states, given a mild collective detectability assumption. Furthermore, the proposed distributed control law incorporates an internal model of the exosystem to allow for uncertain dynamics of the multi-agent system. A numerical example is offered to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed control solution.     

Internal model approach to cooperative robust output regulation for linear uncertain time‐delay multiagent systems

In this paper, we study the cooperative robust output regulation problem for linear uncertain multiagent systems with both communication delay and input delay by the distributed internal model approach. The problem includes the leader‐following consensus problem of linear multiagent systems with time delay as a special case. We first generalize the internal model design method to systems with both communication delay and input delay. Then, under a set of standard assumptions, we have obtained the solution to the problem via both the state feedback control law and the output feedback control law. In contrast to the existing results, our results apply to general linear uncertain multiagent systems, accommodate a large class of leader signals, and achieve asymptotic tracking and disturbance rejection at the same time.     

Robust output regulation problem for linear time-delay systems

In this paper, we study the robust output regulation problem for linear systems with input time-delay. By extending the internal model design method to linear time-delay systems, we have established solvability conditions for the problem by both dynamic state feedback control and dynamic output feedback control. The advantages of internal model approach over the feedforward design approach are that it can handle perturbations of the uncertain parameters in the plant and the control law, and it does not need to solve the regulator equations.     

Distributed impulsive synchronization of Lur'e dynamical networks via parameter variation methods

This paper is devoted to investigating the exponential synchronization of coupled Lur'e dynamical networks with multiple time‐varying delays and stochastic disturbance. The problem studied in this paper could be regarded as a kind of leader‐following synchronization issue. As the networks may suffer from certain impulsive disturbance, an effective distributed impulsive control protocol is proposed to synchronize the stochastic Lur'e dynamical networks. According to the comparison principle, the average impulsive interval, and the extended formula for the variation of parameters, sufficient conditions are derived for successful achievement of the network synchronization with consideration to different functions of impulsive effects. Furthermore, the exponential convergence rate is obtained based on the impulsive solution equation. In addition, finally, some numerical simulations are given to illustrate the validity of the control scheme and the theoretical analysis.     

Robust output tracking for heterogeneous double-integrator dynamics with external disturbance

This paper studies the robust output tracking for heterogeneous double-integrator dynamics with external disturbance. It is assumed that there exist interactions among agents and their neighbours. All the agents have non-identical dynamics with others, and all the system matrices are unknown. A state feedback control protocol with only neighbours information is proposed based on a distributed compensator for non-identical dynamics and an internal-model compensator for the unknown parts. By the algebraic graph theory and matrix theory, sufficient conditions are given to guarantee that all the outputs of the agents converge to the reference output as time tends to infinity. Finally, two numerical simulations are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the theoretical results.     

Robust cooperative output tracking of networked high-order power integrators systems

This paper focuses on a robust cooperative output tracking problem of networked power integrator systems. The dynamics of each system is considered as a nonlinear high-order power integrator whose linearised model is uncontrollable around its origin. It is proven via Lyapunov Theory that under some mild assumptions and graph structural properties, all agents’ outputs in the network can be synchronised to a desired trajectory with a bounded error in the presence of external disturbances as well as model uncertainties. Moreover, the tracking performance can be tuned by appropriately choosing parameters within the controller. The proposed controller for each agent is in the essence constructed via backstepping technique consisting of three components: the state feedback of its own, the outputs of its neighbours and the information of the desired trajectory if connected, and thus in a distributed manner.     

Synchronization Criterion and Control Scheme for Lur'e Type Complex Dynamical Networks with Switching Topology and Coupling Time‐Varying Delay

In this paper, the synchronization problem is addressed in the context of Lur'e type complex switched network (CSN) with coupling time‐varying delay in which every node is a Lur'e system. Based on the Lyapunov–Krasovskii theory and linear matrix inequality (LMI) technique, a delay‐dependent synchronization criterion and a decentralized state feedback dynamic controller for synchronization of CSNs have been proposed. By choosing a common Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional and using the combined reciprocal convex technique, some previously ignored terms can be reconsidered and less conservative conditions can be obtained. In addition, by using an eigenvalue‐decoupling method and convex optimization theory, high‐dimension LMIs are decoupled into a set of low‐dimension ones and the computation complexity of the criterion can be significantly reduced. The effectiveness and applicability of the suggested control solution is verified and assessed through the analysis for two numerical examples.     

On Designing Time‐delay Feedback Controller for Master‐Slave Synchronization of Lur'e Systems

This paper is concerned with the problem of designing a time‐delay output feedback controller for master‐slave synchronization of Lur'e systems. The time delay is divided into two intervals and different energy functions are defined in each interval, which together provide a new Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional and derive a new delay‐dependent synchronization criterion. A sufficient condition for the existence of such a feedback controller is given, and an explicit expression of such a controller is also achieved. These algorithms are formulated in terms of linear matrix inequalities that can be solved easily. Chua's circuit is used to illustrate the effectiveness of the design method.     

Robust output regulation under uncertainties of physical parameters

In this paper the robust output regulation problem is solved for linear time-invariant systems whose matrices are assumed to depend on some parameters, each of which possibly affects all the elements of the matrices describing the system, thus playing the role of a ‘physical’ parameter. The robustness here obtained is the preservation of the output regulation property under perturbations of such parameters. Both the conditions for the existence of a solution and a design procedure of the compensator are given.     

Fault-tolerant cooperative output regulation for multi-vehicle systems with sensor faults

This paper presents a unified framework of fault diagnosis and fault-tolerant cooperative output regulation (FTCOR) for a linear discrete-time multi-vehicle system with sensor faults. The FTCOR control law is designed through three steps. A cooperative output regulation (COR) controller is designed based on the internal mode principle when there are no sensor faults. A sufficient condition on the existence of the COR controller is given based on the discrete-time algebraic Riccati equation (DARE). Then, a decentralised fault diagnosis scheme is designed to cope with sensor faults occurring in followers. A residual generator is developed to detect sensor faults of each follower, and a bank of fault-matching estimators are proposed to isolate and estimate sensor faults of each follower. Unlike the current distributed fault diagnosis for multi-vehicle systems, the presented decentralised fault diagnosis scheme in each vehicle reduces the communication and computation load by only using the information of the vehicle. By combing the sensor fault estimation and the COR control law, an FTCOR controller is proposed. Finally, the simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the FTCOR controller.     

Robust output regulation and the preservation of polynomial closed‐loop stability

In this paper, we study the robust output regulation problem for distributed parameter systems with infinite‐dimensional exosystems. The main purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the several advantages of using a controller that achieves polynomial closed‐loop stability, instead of a one stabilizing the closed‐loop system strongly. In particular, the most serious unresolved issue related to strongly stabilizing controllers is that they do not possess any known robustness properties. In this paper, we apply recent results on the robustness of polynomial stability of semigroups to show that, on the other hand, many controllers achieving polynomial closed‐loop stability are robust with respect to large and easily identifiable classes of perturbations to the parameters of the plant. We construct an observer based feedback controller that stabilizes the closed‐loop system polynomially and solves the robust output regulation problem. Subsequently, we derive concrete conditions for finite rank perturbations of the plant's parameters to preserve the closed‐loop stability and the output regulation property. The theoretical results are illustrated with an example where we consider the problem of robust output tracking for a one‐dimensional heat equation.Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Improved robust stability criteria for a class of Lur'e systems with interval time-varying delays and sector-bounded nonlinearity

This paper is concerned with the absolute and robust stability for a class of neutral-type Lur'e systems with an interval time-varying delay and sector-bounded nonlinearity. By discretising the delay interval into two segmentations with an unequal width, new delay-dependent sufficient conditions for the absolute and robust stability of neutral-type Lur'e systems are proposed in terms of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) by employing a modified Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional (LKF). These conditions reduce the conservativeness in computing the maximum allowed delay bounds (MADBs) in many cases. Finally, several standard numerical examples are presented to show the effectiveness of the proposed approach.     

Robust output regulation for containment control of heterogeneous discrete-time nonlinear multi-agent systems

ABSTRACT

In existing researches on containment control of heterogeneous multi-agent systems (MASs), the solution is usually dependent on the solvability of regulator equations. However, the closed-form solution of many nonlinear regulator equations of systems is rarely obtained. Towards this end, in this paper the containment control problem of heterogeneous discrete-time nonlinear MASs subject to parameter uncertainties is considered, and the power series approach is adopted to solve complex regulator equations by decomposing them into a series of solvable linear equations. Then, a distributed robust control law based on internal model principle is presented by utilising the solution of the linear equations. Theoretical analysis shows that under certain assumptions asymptotic containment control is achieved for the heterogeneous discrete-time nonlinear MASs with sufficiently small parameter perturbations. Finally, a numerical simulation is implemented to verify the proposed control law.     

Absolute instability of Lur'e systems and its application to oscillation analysis of uncertain genetic networks

We derive instability criteria for Lur'e systems with sector‐bounded nonlinearities and uncertain external signals. First, we define absolute instability of an equilibrium and derive an absolute instability condition for a fixed equilibrium point in terms of a linear matrix inequality, which is analogous to the well‐known circle stability criterion. Then, the condition is extended to a parametric absolute instability condition, which is applicable to the instability test of a Lur'e system with an equilibrium point whose location is affected by uncertain nonlinearities and uncertain external signals. Finally, we show that the proposed analysis method is useful through the oscillation analysis of an uncertain genetic network model. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Synchronised output regulation of leader-following heterogeneous networked systems via error feedback

A dynamic error feedback controller is presented for the synchronised output regulation (SOR) of leader-following heterogeneous linear networked systems. The nodes in the networked systems are divided into two kinds: the leader node accessible to the regulated error and the following nodes inaccessible to the regulated error but accessible to the relative output errors with respect to their neighbouring nodes. By using the small-gain theorem, a sufficient criterion for the SOR problem is developed for more general networks. This criterion can be regarded as imposing an additional H_∞ constraint on the classical output regulation problem. The synthesis problem is then addressed by means of linear matrix inequality technique. The efficacy of the analytic results is illustrated by simulation examples.     

Robust absolute stability criteria for uncertain Lur'e systems of neutral type

This paper is concerned with robust absolute stability of uncertain Lur'e systems of neutral type. Some delay‐dependent stability criteria are obtained and formulated in the form of linear matrix inequalities. The criteria cover some existing results as their special cases. Neither model transformation nor bounding technique for cross terms is involved through derivation of the stability criteria. Numerical examples show the effectiveness of the criteria. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Robust Absolute Stability Analysis of Multiple Time‐Delay Lur'e Systems With Parametric Uncertainties

The problem of robust absolute stability for time‐delay Lur'e systems with parametric uncertainties is investigated in this paper. The nonlinear part of the Lur'e system is assumed to be both time‐invariant and time‐varying. The structure of uncertainty is a general case that includes norm‐bounded uncertainty. Based on the Lyapunov–Krasovskii stability theory, some delay‐dependent sufficient conditions for the robust absolute stability of the Lur'e system will be derived and expressed in the form of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). These conditions reduce the conservativeness in computing the upper bound of the maximum allowed delay in many cases. Numerical examples are given to show that the proposed stability criteria are less conservative than those reported in the established literatures.