On the Design of Event‐Triggered Suboptimal Controllers for Nonlinear Systems

In this paper, two suboptimal event‐triggered control techniques are proposed for both the regulation and the tracking problems in a broad class of nonlinear networked control systems. The proposed techniques are based on the state‐dependent Riccati equation (SDRE) methodology. In the case of the regulation problem, the asymptotic stability of the origin of the closed‐loop system under the proposed event‐triggered control law is investigated. In addition, for the tracking problem, it is proved that the tracking error between the system output and its desired trajectory converges asymptotically to zero under some mild conditions. It is shown that the proposed methods can considerably reduce the information exchange between the controller and the actuator. Due to the implementation procedures of the proposed techniques, no Zeno behavior is occurred. Three numerical simulations are provided to demonstrate the design procedure and the flexibility of the proposed event‐triggered control techniques.     

Retrofit fault‐tolerant tracking control design of an unmanned quadrotor helicopter considering actuator dynamics

This paper presents a retrofit fault‐tolerant tracking control (FTTC) design method with application to an unmanned quadrotor helicopter (UQH). The proposed retrofit fault‐tolerant tracking controller is developed to accommodate loss‐of‐effectiveness faults in the actuators of UQH. First, a state feedback tracking controller acting as the normal controller is designed to guarantee the stability and satisfactory performance of UQH in the absence of actuator faults, while actuator dynamics of UQH are also considered in the controller design. Then, a retrofit control mechanism with integration of an adaptive fault estimator and an adaptive fault compensator is devised against the adverse effects of actuator faults. Next, the proposed retrofit FTTC strategy, which is synthesized by the normal controller and an additional reconfigurable fault compensating mechanism, takes over the control of the faulty UQH to asymptotically stabilize the closed‐loop system with an acceptable performance degradation in the presence of actuator faults. Finally, both numerical simulations and practical experiments are conducted in order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed FTTC methodology on the asymptotic convergence of tracking error for several combinations of loss‐of‐effectiveness faults in actuators.     

Robust adaptive fault‐tolerant tracking control for a class of high‐order nonlinear system with finite‐time prescribed performance

In this article, an improved prescribed performance adaptive control strategy is developed to handle the output tracking control problem for a class of nonlinear high‐order systems with actuator faults. The actuator faults considered include the bias fault and gain fault models. A technique of adding a power integrator is utilized to deal with the controller design problem of high‐order system. With the help of backstepping technology and the classic adaptive control, an output tracking control scheme is proposed, which can guarantee that all signals of the closed‐loop system are bounded and the tracking error converges to a finite‐time predetermined region. Finally, the feasibility of the presented control method is tested through the simulation results.     

Adaptive reliable guaranteed performance control of uncertain nonlinear systems by using exponent‐dependent barrier Lyapunov function

This paper investigates the issue of adaptive reliable tracking control for a class of uncertain nonlinear parametric strict‐feedback systems under actuator faults. To guarantee better transient performance of adaptive systems especially when actuator faults occur, a novel prescribed performance bounds (PPBs) method based on exponent‐dependent barrier Lyapunov function is developed. Differing from the existing results where the control schemes have introduced the strictly monotone smooth function to achieve constrained error transformation, the proposed PPBs scheme is designed by using the time‐varying barriers to constrain the error trajectories, which accurately characterizes the convergence rates and convergence bounds of errors. Finally, under the framework of backstepping technique and Lyapunov stability theorem, an adaptive reliable controller is designed to ensure that all the closed‐loop signals are semiglobally uniformly ultimately bounded with the tracking errors converging to the specified PPBs. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.     

Fault tolerant control using virtual actuator for continuous‐time Lipschitz nonlinear systems

In this brief, we extend the existing results on fault tolerant control via virtual actuator approach to a class of systems with Lipschitz nonlinearities to maintain the closed‐loop stability after actuator faults. This generalization is established by relying on the input‐to‐state stability properties of cascaded systems. The virtual actuator block, placed between faulty plant and nominal controller, generates useful input signals for faulty plant by using output signals of the nominal controller to guarantee the closed‐loop stability in the presence of actuator faults. This design problem is reduced to a matrix inequality that can be turned to an LMI by fixing a variable to a constant value and solving the resulting LMI feasibility problem. The proposed fault tolerant control method is successfully evaluated using a nonlinear system. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Robust adaptive tracking control of distributed delay systems with actuator and communication failures

This paper is concerned with the robust adaptive fault‐tolerant tracking control problem for a class of distributed delay systems against faulted and perturbed actuators and communications. As all the faults on actuators and communications, network delays in control and communication channels, and perturbations in communications and exogenous disturbances are unknown, some adaptation schemes are developed to adjust controller parameters in real‐time for constructing a class of distributed compensation controllers based on the delayed signals. Then, according to the information from the adaptive mechanism, the effect of each actuator and communication fault, network delay, channel perturbation and exogenous disturbance can be eliminated completely by using the proposed distributed adaptive‐state feedback controllers. Furthermore, asymptotic tracking results of the distributed closed‐loop systems can be achieved based on Lyapunov stability theory. An example is provided to further illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed direct adaptive design technique. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley and Sons Asia Pte Ltd and Chinese Automatic Control Society     

Dynamic Output Feedback Control for Systems Subject to Actuator Saturation via Event‐Triggered Scheme

In this paper, the event‐triggered dynamic output feedback control problem for linear systems with actuator saturation is investigated. Event‐triggered scheme only transmits the corresponding signal when the event‐triggered condition is violated. Due to its advantage of saving communication resources, it is utilized to design the dynamic output feedback controller. A criterion is established to guarantee the stability of the closed‐loop system by introducing an exponential term for the Lyapunov function, which corresponds to the exponential term in the event‐triggered condition. The explicit design of the coefficient matrices of the controller is presented. Furthermore, a lower bound of the inter‐event time is calculated to avoid Zeno behavior. An optimization algorithm is then formulated to maximize the estimation of the domain of attraction. Finally, a numerical example is given to illustrate the effectiveness of our methods and to show the trade‐off between the size of the domain of attraction and communication resources saving.     

Robust adaptive fault-tolerant control for a class of uncertain nonlinear systems with multiple time delays

This study is concerned with the problem of robust adaptive fuzzy fault-tolerant control for a class of uncertain nonlinear systems with mismatching parameter uncertainties, external disturbances, multiple state time delays perturbations and actuator failures, which include loss of effectiveness, outage and stuck modes. A novel direct adaptive fuzzy tracking control scheme is developed to achieve the fault-tolerant control objective. First, by introducing a positive nonlinear control gain function, the effects of state time delays and actuator failures are effectively compensated. Then, a suitable fuzzy logic system (FLS), which is used to approximate the corresponding nonlinear function, is constructed to eliminate the influences on mismatched parameter uncertainty and external disturbance. Moreover, it is shown that all the closed-loop system signals are uniformly bounded and that the tracking error converges to a small neighborhood of the origin via Lyapunov–Krasovskii stability analysis. Finally, the proposed adaptive fuzzy fault-tolerant tracking design approach is illustrated on a two stage chemical reactor system with delayed recycle streams.     

Robust Fault‐Tolerant Control of Launch Vehicle Via GPI Observer and Integral Sliding Mode Control

A robust fault‐tolerant attitude control scheme is proposed for a launch vehicle (LV) in the presence of unknown external disturbances, mismodeling dynamics, actuator faults, and actuator's constraints. The input‐output representation is employed to describe the rotational dynamics of LV rendering three independently decoupled second order single‐input‐single‐output (SISO) systems. In the differential algebraic framework, general proportional integral (GPI) observers are used for the estimations of the states and of the generalized disturbances, which include internal perturbations, external disturbances, and unknown actuator failures. In order to avoid the defects of the conventional sliding surface, a new nonlinear integral sliding manifold is introduced for the robust fault‐tolerant sliding mode controller design. The stability of the GPI observer and that of the closed‐loop system are guaranteed by Lyapunov's indirect and direct methods, respectively. The convincing numerical simulation results demonstrate the proposed control scheme is with high attitude tracking performance in the presence of various disturbances, actuator faults, and actuator constraints.     

Event‐triggered finite‐time reliable control for nonhomogeneous Markovian jump systems

This article investigates the event‐triggered finite‐time reliable control problem for a class of Markovian jump systems with time‐varying transition probabilities, time‐varying actuator faults, and time‐varying delays. First, a Luenberger observer is constructed to estimate the unmeasured system state. Second, by applying an event‐triggered strategy from observer to controller, the frequency of transmission is reduced. Third, based on linear matrix inequality technique and stochastic finite‐time analysis, event‐triggered observer‐based controllers are designed and sufficient conditions are given, which ensure the finite‐time boundedness of the closed‐loop system in an H_∞ sense. Finally, an example is utilized to show the effectiveness of the proposed controller design approach.     

Robust adaptive fault‐tolerant tracking control of multiple time‐delays systems with mismatched parameter uncertainties and actuator failures

This study deals with the problem of robust adaptive fault‐tolerant tracking for uncertain systems with multiple delayed state perturbations, mismatched parameter uncertainties, external disturbances, and actuator faults including loss of effectiveness, outage, and stuck. It is assumed that the upper bounds of the delayed state perturbations, the external disturbances and the unparameterizable time‐varying stuck faults are unknown. Then, by estimating online such unknown bounds and on the basis of the updated values of these unknown bounds from the adaptive mechanism, a class of memoryless state feedback fault‐tolerant controller with switching signal function is constructed for robust tracking of dynamical signals. Furthermore, by making use of the proposed adaptive robust tracking controller, the tracking error can be guaranteed to be asymptotically zero in spite of multiple delayed state perturbations, mismatched parameter uncertainties, external disturbances, and actuator faults. In addition, it is also proved that the solutions with tracking error of resulting adaptive closed‐loop system are uniformly bounded. Finally, a simulation example for B747‐100/200 aircraft system is provided to illustrate the efficiency of the proposed fault‐tolerant design approach. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Event‐Based Consensus Controller for Linear Multi‐Agent Systems Over Directed Communication Topologies: A Co‐Design Approach

The paper addresses the distributed event‐triggered consensus problem in directed topologies for multi‐agent systems (MAS) with general linear dynamic agents. A co‐design approach is proposed to determine parameters of the consensus controller and its event‐triggered mechanism (ETM), simultaneously. This approach guarantees asymptotic stability along with decreasing data transmission among agents. In the proposed event‐based consensus controller, each agent broadcasts data to the neighbors only at its own triggering instants; this differs from previous studies in which continuous data streams among agents were required. Furthermore, the proposed control law is based on the piecewise constant functions of the measurement values, which are updated at triggering instants. In this case the control scheme decreases the communication network usage, energy consumption, and wear of the actuator. As a result, it facilitates distributed implementation of the proposed consensus controller for real‐world applications. A theorem is proved to outline sufficient conditions to guarantee the asymptotic stability of the closed‐loop system with the event‐based consensus controller. Another theorem is also proved to show the Zeno behavior exclusion. As a case study, the proposed event‐based controller is applied for a diving consensus problem to illustrate the effectiveness of the method.     

Fault tolerant control using virtual actuators and set‐separation detection principles

In this paper we combine a set‐separation approach to fault detection and identification (FDI), recently proposed by the authors, with the virtual actuator approach to controller reconfiguration of Steffen and Lunze. The FDI approach is based on the separation of sets that characterize the system operation under different actuator fault situations that can occur in the plant. The derivation of these sets takes into account the closed‐loop system reconfigured by means of the virtual actuator under all considered actuator faults. Analytic conditions in terms of closed‐loop system parameters and bounds on external signals can be deduced from the required set separation which, in turn, guarantees closed‐loop stability, setpoint tracking, and optimal performance properties of the scheme under all considered fault situations. Thus, the main contribution of this paper is twofold. First, it provides an integrated strategy for fault tolerant control by adapting two existing techniques for FDI and for controller reconfiguration to work in combined form. Second, and more importantly, it endows the resulting combined scheme with guaranteed closed‐loop stability, setpoint tracking and optimal performance properties under actuator faults and in the presence of disturbances. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Sliding mode fault‐tolerant control of uncertain system: A delta operator approach

This paper is concerned with the sliding mode control of uncertain nonlinear systems against actuator faults and external disturbances based on delta operator approach. The nonlinearity, actuator fault, and external disturbance are considered in this study, and the bounds of Euclidean norms of the nonlinearity and the specific lower and upper bounds of the actuator faults and the disturbances are unknown knowledge. Our attention is mainly focused on designing a sliding mode fault‐tolerant controller to compensate the effects from the nonlinearity, unknown actuator fault, and external disturbance. Based on Lyapunov stability theory, a novel‐adaptive fault‐tolerant sliding mode control law is deigned such that the resulting closed loop delta operator system is finite‐time convergence and the actuator faults can be tolerated, simultaneously. Finally, simulation results are provided to verify the effectiveness of the proposed control design scheme. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Adaptive event‐triggered global fast finite‐time control for a class of uncertain nonlinear systems

This article designs an adaptive event‐triggered controller to solve the problem of global finite‐time stabilization for a class of uncertain nonlinear systems. By using the symbol function technique, the event‐triggered error is completely compensated, the adaptive technique and the back‐stepping method are simultaneously applied to the controller design, and the new way of designing controller is completed on the basis of fast finite‐time stability theory. Subsequently, taking Lyapunov stability theorem into account, the system stability is proved, and the system is demonstrated by contradiction to be non‐zeno. Finally, giving a simulation example to display the feasibility of this method.     

Actuator fault‐tolerant control of ocean surface vessels with input saturation

In this paper, an actuator robust fault‐tolerant control is proposed for ocean surface vessels with parametric uncertainties and unknown disturbances. Using the backstepping technique and Lyapunov synthesis method, the adaptive tracking control is first developed by incorporating the actuator configuration matrix and considering actuator saturation constraints. The changeable actuator configuration matrix caused by rotatable propulsion devices is considered. Next, the actuator fault‐tolerant control is developed for the case when faults occur in propulsion devices of the ocean surface vessel. Rigorous stability analysis is carried out to show that the proposed fault‐tolerant control can guarantee the stability of the closed‐loop system under certain actuator failure. Finally, simulation studies are given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed adaptive tracking control and fault‐tolerant control. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Redundant Input Safety Tracking for Omnidirectional Rehabilitative Training Walker with Control Constraints

This study proposes a nonlinear safety tracking method based on redundant degrees of freedom with control constraints to protect against actuator faults that may occur in robotic rehabilitative walkers. A redundant input model with uniform actuator faults is constructed by separating the corresponding columns of the control matrix, and an adaptive robust control method is presented to deal with the separated term that is considered in relation to the extrinsic bounded interference that occurs on robotic walker systems. Based on the backstepping technique, an adjustable control law can be designed to maintain stability in terms of solving linear matrix inequality. The trajectory tracking error performance and the velocity tracking error performance are derived simultaneously. As an application, simulation results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed method and verify that the walker can provide safe sequential motions even when one wheel actuator fails.     

Event‐Triggered Iterative Learning Control for Multi‐Agent Systems with Quantization

The emergence of networked control systems urges the digital control design to integrate communication constraints efficiently. In order to accommodate this requirement, this paper investigates the joint design of tracking problem for multi‐agent system (MAS) in the presence of resource‐limited communication channel and quantization. An event‐triggered robust learning control with quantization is firstly proposed and employed for MAS in this paper. The new event‐triggered distributed robust learning control system with the introduction of logarithmic quantization guarantees the asymptotic tracking property on the finite interval. Convergence analysis is given based on the Lyapunov direct method. Finally, numerical simulations are given to illustrate the efficacy of the event‐triggered approach compared with time‐triggered controllers.     

Adaptive fault tolerant control for a class of uncertain fractional‐order systems based on disturbance observer

In this paper, a class of fractional‐order nonlinear systems are considered in the presence of actuator faults. A novel fault tolerant control scheme based on disturbance observer has been presented, where the actuator faults are considered as the system disturbance and can be approximated by the proposed disturbance observer. The developed fault tolerant control guarantees the convergence of the closed‐loop system and the output tracking performance. Finally, a simulation example is presented to verify the effectiveness of the new method.