H∞ fault estimation with randomly occurring uncertainties,quantization effects and successive packet dropouts: The finite‐horizon case

In this paper, the finite‐horizon H_∞ fault estimation problem is investigated for a class of uncertain nonlinear time‐varying systems subject to multiple stochastic delays. The randomly occurring uncertainties (ROUs) enter into the system due to the random fluctuations of network conditions. The measured output is quantized by a logarithmic quantizer before being transmitted to the fault estimator. Also, successive packet dropouts (SPDs) happen when the quantized signals are transmitted through an unreliable network medium. Three mutually independent sets of Bernoulli‐distributed white sequences are introduced to govern the multiple stochastic delays, ROUs and SPDs. By employing the stochastic analysis approach, some sufficient conditions are established for the desired finite‐horizon fault estimator to achieve the specified H_∞ performance. The time‐varying parameters of the fault estimator are obtained by solving a set of recursive linear matrix inequalities. Finally, an illustrative numerical example is provided to show the effectiveness of the proposed fault estimation approach. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.