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.     

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.     

An Efficient Finite Difference Method for The Time‐Delay Optimal Control Problems With Time‐Varying Delay

In this paper, an efficient finite difference method is presented for the solution of time‐delay optimal control problems with time‐varying delay in the state. By using the Pontryagin's maximum principle, the original time‐delay optimal control problem is first transformed into a system of coupled two‐point boundary value problems involving both delay and advance terms. Then the derived system is converted into a system of linear algebraic equations by using a second‐order finite difference formula and a Hermite interpolation polynomial for the first‐order derivatives and delay terms, respectively. The convergence analysis of the proposed approach is provided. The new scheme is also successful for the optimal control of time‐delay systems affected by external persistent disturbances. Numerical examples are included to demonstrate the validity and applicability of the new technique. Some comparative results are included to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Compensation of time‐varying input delay for discrete‐time nonlinear systems

We consider general discrete‐time nonlinear systems (of arbitrary nonlinear growth) with time‐varying input delays and design an explicit predictor feedback controller to compensate the input delay. Such results have been achieved in continuous time, but only under the restriction that the delay rate is bounded by unity, which ensures that the input signal flow does not get reversed, namely, that old inputs are not felt multiple times by the plant (because on such subsequent occasions, the control input acts as a disturbance). For discrete‐time systems, an analogous restriction would be that the input delay is non‐increasing. In this work, we do not impose such a restriction. We provide a design and a global stability analysis that allow the input delay to be arbitrary (containing intervals of increase, decrease, or stagnation) over an arbitrarily long finite period of time. Unlike in the continuous‐time case, the predictor feedback law in the discrete‐time case is explicit. We specialize the result to linear time‐invariant systems and provide an explicit estimate of the exponential decay rate. Carefully constructed examples are provided to illustrate the design and analytical challenges. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Input‐to‐state stability of min‐max MPC scheme for nonlinear time‐varying delay systems

This paper studies the robustness problem of the min–max model predictive control (MPC) scheme for constrained nonlinear time‐varying delay systems subject to bounded disturbances. The notion of the input‐to‐state stability (ISS) of nonlinear time‐delay systems is introduced. Then by using the Lyapunov–Krasovskii method, a delay‐dependent sufficient condition is derived to guarantee input‐to‐state practical stability (ISpS) of the closed‐loop system by way of nonlinear matrix inequalities (NLMI). In order to lessen the online computational demand, the non‐convex min‐max optimization problem is then converted to a minimization problem with linear matrix inequality (LMI) constraints and a suboptimal MPC algorithm is provided. Finally, an example of a truck‐trailer is used to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed results. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley and Sons Asia Pte Ltd and Chinese Automatic Control Society     

Linear quadratic regulation for linear time-varying systems with multiple input delays

This paper studies the classic linear quadratic regulation (LQR) problem for both continuous-time and discrete-time systems with multiple input delays. For discrete-time systems, the LQR problem for systems with single input delay has been studied in existing literature, whereas a solution to the multiple input delay case is not known to our knowledge. For continuous-time systems with multiple input delays, the LQR problem has been tackled via an infinite dimensional system theory approach and a frequency/time domain approach. The objective of the present paper is to give an explicit solution to the LQR problem via a simple and intuitive approach. The main contributions of the paper include a fundamental result of duality between the LQR problem for systems with multiple input delays and a smoothing problem for an associated backward stochastic system. The duality allows us to obtain a solution to the LQR problem via standard projection in linear space. The LQR controller is simply constructed by the solution of one backward Riccati difference (for the discrete-time case) or differential (for the continuous-time case) equation of the same order as the plant (ignoring the delays).     

Stability and Stabilization of Networked Control Systems Under Limited Communication Capacity and Variable Sampling

This paper investigates the problem of quantized feedback control for networked control systems (NCSs) with time‐varying delays and time‐varying sampling intervals, wherein the physical plant is a continuous‐time, and the control input is a discrete‐time signal. By using an input delay approach and a sector bound method, the network induced delays, the signal quantization and sampling intervals are presented in one framework in the case of the state and the control input by quantization in a logarithmic form. We exploit a novel Lyapunov functional with discontinuity, taking full advantage of the NCS characteristic information including the bounds of delays, the bounds of sampling intervals and quantization parameters. In addition, it has been shown that the Lyapunov functional is decreased at the jump instants. Furthermore, we use the Leibniz‐Newton formula and free‐weighting matrix method to obtain the stability analysis and stabilization conditions which are dependent on the NCS characteristic information. The proposed stability analysis and stabilizing controller design conditions can be presented in term of linear matrix inequalities, which have less conservativeness and less computational complexity. Four examples demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methods.     

Delay and state observation for SISO nonlinear systems with input delay

This paper deals with the problem of state and delay estimation for SISO nonlinear systems with an unknown time‐varying delay in the input. The main idea is to approximate the delayed input by using Taylor's theorem and to create an extended system with the delay as part of the extended state. Then, the construction of an observer is proposed to estimate both state and delay. The results are illustrated by simulations.     

Singularly perturbed implicit control law for linear time‐varying delay MIMO systems

This paper proposes a control scheme for the problem of stabilizing partly unknown multiple‐input multiple‐output linear time‐varying retarded systems. The control scheme is composed by a singularly perturbed controller and a reference model. We assume the knowledge of a number of structural characteristics of the system as the boundedness and the knowledge of the bounds for the unknown parameters (and their derivatives) that define the system matrices, as well as the structure of these matrices. The results presented here are a generalization of previous results on linear time‐varying Single‐Input Single‐Output (SISO) and multiple‐input multiple‐output systems without delays and linear time‐varying retarded SISO systems. The closed‐loop system is a linear singularly perturbed retarded system with uniform asymptotic stability behavior. The uniform asymptotic stability of the singularly perturbed retarded system is guaranteed. We show how to design a control law such that the system dynamics for each output is given by a Hurwitz polynomial with constant coefficients. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Reachable Set Estimation for Discrete‐Time Singular Systems

This paper is concerned with the problem of reachable set estimation for discrete‐time singular systems with bounded input disturbances. Based on the Lyapunov method, a new sufficient condition is established in terms of linear matrix inequality (LMI) to guarantee that the reachable set of discrete‐time singular system is bounded by the intersection of ellipsoids. Then the result is extended to the problem for discrete‐time singular systems with time‐varying delay by utilizing the delay‐dependent approach and free weighting matrices. Two numerical examples are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the obtained results proposed in this paper.     

Output feedback regulation of a class of high‐order feedforward nonlinear systems with unknown time‐varying delay in the input under measurement sensitivity

An output feedback regulation problem is considered for a class of high‐order feedforward nonlinear systems with delay in the input under measurement sensitivity. The key features are that the considered systems have uncertain high‐order feedforward nonlinearity and unknown time‐varying delay in the input. Then, the controller is supposed to be engaged where the output feedback information is distorted by measurement sensitivity. Our proposed controller has two gains—fixed and adaptive gains. The fixed gain is first designed to compensate for measurement sensitivity, and the adaptive gain is next utilized to dominate both unknown input delay and uncertain high‐order feedforward nonlinearity. Simulation examples are given to highlight the advantage of our control scheme.     

Optimal partitioning method for stability analysis of continuous/discrete delay systems

This paper is concerned with the problem of stability analysis for continuous‐time/discrete‐time systems with interval time‐varying delay. Based on the idea of partitioning the delay interval into l nonuniform subintervals, new Lyapunov functionals are established. By utilizing the reciprocally convex approach to deal with the delay information in each subinterval, sufficient stability conditions are proposed in terms of linear matrix inequalities. Based on these criteria, the optimal partitioning method is given on the basis of the genetic algorithm. Finally, the reduced conservatism of the results in this paper is illustrated by numerical examples. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Adaptive quantized tracking control for uncertain switched nonstrict‐feedback nonlinear systems with discrete and distributed time‐varying delays

This paper is concerned with an adaptive tracking problem for a more general class of switched nonstrict‐feedback nonlinear time‐delay systems in the presence of quantized input. The system structure in a nonstrict‐feedback form, the discrete and distributed time‐varying delays, the sector‐bounded quantized input, and arbitrary switching behavior are involved in the considered systems. In particular, to overcome the difficulties from the distributed time‐varying delays and the sector‐bounded quantized input, the mean‐value theorem for integrals and some special techniques are exploited respectively. Moreover, by combining the Lyapunov‐Razumikhin method, dynamic surface control technique, fuzzy logic systems approximation, and variable separation technique, a quadratic common Lyapunov function is easily built for all subsystems and a common adaptive quantized control scheme containing only 1 adaptive parameter is proposed. It is shown that the tracking error converges to an adjustable neighborhood of the origin whereas all signals of the closed‐loop systems are semiglobally uniformly ultimately bounded. Finally, 2 simulation examples are provided to verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed design methodology.     

Stabilization of linear systems with time‐varying input delay by event‐triggered delay independent truncated predictor feedback

This article deals with the problem of stabilization of linear systems with time‐varying input delay by an event‐triggered delay independent truncated predictor feedback law, either of the state feedback type or the output feedback type. Only the information of a delay bound rather than the delay itself is required in the design of both control laws and event‐triggering strategies. For both the state feedback case and the output feedback case, an admissible delay bound that guarantees the stabilizability of a general linear system is established, and the Zeno behavior is shown to be excluded. For linear systems with all open‐loop poles at the origin or in the open left‐half plane, stabilization can be achieved for a delay under an arbitrarily large bound.     

Quantized H∞ Control for Networked Systems with Communication Constraints

The problem of quantized H_∞ control for networked control systems (NCSs) subject to time‐varying delay and multiple packet dropouts is investigated in this paper. Both the control input and the measurement output signals are quantized before being transmitted and the quantized errors are described as sector bound uncertainties. The measurement channel and the control channel packet dropouts are considered simultaneously, and the stochastic variables satisfying Bernoulli random binary distribution are utilized to model the random multiple packet dropouts. Sufficient conditions for the existence of an observer‐based controller are established to ensure the exponential mean‐square stablility of the closed‐loop system and achieve the optimal H_∞ disturbance attenuation level. By using a globally convergent algorithm involving convex optimization, the nonconvex feasibility can be solved successfully. Finally, a numerical example is given to illustrate the effectiveness and applicability of the proposed method.     

Output‐feedback control strategies of lower‐triangular nonlinear nonholonomic systems in any prescribed finite time

In this paper, output‐feedback control strategies are proposed for lower‐triangular nonlinear nonholonomic systems in any prescribed finite time. Specifically, by employing the input‐state–scaling technique, the controlled systems are firstly converted into lower‐triangular nonlinear systems, which makes it possible to study such systems using the high‐gain technique. Then, by introducing a scaling of the state by a function that grows unbounded toward the terminal time and proposing a high‐gain observer–prescribed finite time recovering the system states, the output‐feedback regulation control problem in any prescribed finite time is firstly achieved for nonlinear nonholonomic systems with unknown constant incremental rate. Moreover, by designing another time‐varying high gain, the output‐feedback stabilization control problem in any prescribed finite time is then achieved for nonlinear nonholonomic systems with a time‐varying incremental rate. Finally, a numerical example is introduced to show the effectiveness of proposed control strategies.     

Optimal robust disturbance attenuation for continuous time‐varying systems

In this paper we consider the Optimal robust disturbance attenuation problem (ORDAP) for continuous time‐varying systems subject to time‐varying unstructured uncertainty. We show that for causal (possibly time‐varying) continuous systems, ORDAP is equivalent to finding the smallest fixed point of a ‘two‐disc’ type optimization problem under time‐varying feedback control laws. Duality is applied in the context of nest algebra of causal stable systems, to prove existence of optimal continuous time‐varying controllers. We also show that for time‐invariant nominal plants, time‐varying control laws offer no improvement over time‐invariant feedback control laws. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An Lmi Approach To Non‐Fragile Guaranteed Cost Control Of Uncertain Discrete Time‐Delay Systems

This paper studies the non‐fragile Guaranteed Cost Control (GCC) problem via memoryless state‐feedback controllers for a class of uncertain discrete time‐delay linear systems. The systems are assumed to have norm‐bounded, time‐varying parameter uncertainties in the state, delay‐state, input, delay‐input and state‐feedback gain matrices. Existence of the guaranteed cost controllers are related to solutions of some linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). The non‐fragile GCC state‐feedback controllers are designed based on a convex optimization problem with LMI constraints to minimize the guaranteed cost of the resultant closed‐loop systems. Numerical examples are given to illustrate the design methods.