Decentralized output feedback controller design for nonlinear interconnected systems with unknown control direction and time‐varying delays

The decentralized output feedback control problem is considered for a class of large‐scale systems with unknown time‐varying delays. The uncertain interconnections are bounded by general nonlinear functions with unknown coefficients. The control direction parameters are unknown for each subsystem, which brings a challenging issue for decentralized controller design. To deal with this problem, we propose a new decentralized control scheme with the help of Nussbaum function. The decentralized filter is designed at first. By constructing Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional, we design the dynamic output feedback controller. It is rigorously proved that the closed‐loop system is asymptotically stable. Finally, the simulation is performed, and the results verify the effectiveness of the proposed method. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.