Minimal-Approximation-Based Decentralized Backstepping Control of Interconnected Time-Delay Systems

Quantized-output-feedback practical prescribed-time design strategy for decentralized tracking of a class of interconnected nonlinear systems with unknown interaction delays

This paper proposes a decentralized practical prescribed-time (PT) tracking design using quantized output feedback (QOF) for uncertain interconnected lower-triangular systems with unknown time-delay interconnections. The local output signals are assumed to be only measured and quantized for the PT tracker design under a band-limited network. By employing a PT-dependent scaling function, a decentralized memoryless PT observer based on quantized local outputs is developed to estimate local unmeasurable state variables. Owing to output quantization, the available output feedback signals become discontinuous. As a result, the tracking error between the actual (i.e., unquantized) local output and the local desired signal cannot be utilized in the local virtual controller. To address this issue, a novel adaptive compensation mechanism is derived to design the local PT neural network tracking laws using only quantized local outputs and estimated states. The proposed PT tracking controller does not require information on the interconnected nonlinear functions and interaction delays. During the Lyapunov stability analysis, the boundary layer error decomposition approach is employed to address the issue of non-differentiability in the local virtual control laws. The proposed QOF control system achieves practical PT stability. It is shown that the settling time of local tracking errors can be predetermined, regardless of the design parameters and initial conditions. Finally, the proposed QOF decentralization strategy is supported with illustrative examples and a comparison to demonstrate its benefits.

Fixed-time adaptive dynamic event-triggered control of flexible-joint robots with prescribed performance and time delays

In this study, a dynamic event-triggered control strategy was proposed for n-link flexible-joint robots with prescribed tracking performance and time delays. First, an adaptive fixed-time filter was designed to prevent "differential explosion", and a given-time prescribed performance method was introduced. Then, an auxiliary system and Lyapunov-Krasovskii functionals were designed to compensate for input and full-state delays. After that, neural networks were introduced to handle the unknown dynamics and a dynamic event-triggered controller was designed. The closed-loop system was demonstrated fixed-time stability without Zeno behaviors. Finally, simulations were presented to confirm the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.

Observer-Based Adaptive Neural Networks Control for Large-Scale Interconnected Systems With Nonconstant Control Gains

In this article, an adaptive neural network (NN) decentralized output-feedback control design is studied for the uncertain strict-feedback large-scale interconnected nonlinear systems with nonconstant virtual and control gains. NNs are utilized to approximate the unknown nonlinear functions, and the immeasurable states are estimated via designing an NN decentralized state observer. By constructing the logarithm Lyapunov functions, an observer-based NN adaptive decentralized backstepping output-feedback control is developed in the framework of the decentralized backstepping control. The proposed adaptive decentralized backstepping output-feedback control can make that the closed-loop system is semiglobally uniformly ultimately bounded (SGUUB) and that the tracking and observer errors converge to a small neighborhood of the origin. The most important contribution of this article is that it removes the restrictive assumption in the existing results that both virtual and control gain functions in each subsystem must be constants. A numerical simulation example is provided to validate the effectiveness of the proposed control method and theory.

Active Full-Vehicle Suspension Control via Cloud-Aided Adaptive Backstepping Approach

This paper is concerned with the adaptive backstepping control problem for a cloud-aided nonlinear active full-vehicle suspension system. A novel model for a nonlinear active suspension system is established, in which uncertain parameters, unknown friction forces, nonlinear springs and dampers, and performance requirements are considered simultaneously. In order to deal with the nonlinear characteristics, a backstepping control strategy is developed. Meanwhile, an adaptive control strategy is proposed to handle the uncertain parameters and unknown friction forces. In the cloud-aided vehicle suspension system framework, the adaptive backstepping controller is updated in a remote cloud based on the cloud storing information, such as road information, vehicle suspension information, and reference trajectories. Finally, simulation results for a full vehicle with 7-degree of freedom model are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme, and it is shown that the addressed controller can improve the performances more than 80% compared with passive vehicle suspension systems.

Distributed Control of High-Order Nonlinear Input Constrained Multiagent Systems Using a Backstepping-Free Method

This paper presents novel cooperative tracking control for a class of input-constrained multiagent systems with a dynamic leader. Each follower agent is described by a high-order nonlinear dynamics in strict feedback form with input constraints. Our main contribution lies in presenting a system transformation method that can convert the input-constrained state feedback cooperative tracking control of agents into an unconstrained output feedback control of agents with dynamics in Brunovsky normal form. As a result, the original problem is simplified to be a simple stabilization of the transformed system for the agents. Thus, the use of the backstepping scheme is obviated, and the synthesis and computation are extremely simplified. It is strictly proved that all follower agents can synchronize to the leader with bounded synchronization errors, and all other signals in the closed-loop system are semi-global uniformly ultimately bounded. Finally, numerical analysis is carried out to validate the theoretical results and demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

Finite-Time Decentralized Control of IT2 T-S Fuzzy Interconnected Systems With Discontinuous Interconnections

This paper investigates the finite-time decentralized control problem for interconnected systems with discontinuous interconnections. By using the interval type-2 Takagi-Sugeno (IT2 T-S) fuzzy model, a unified IT2 T-S fuzzy interconnected system is provided, in which the global system is described as a fuzzy blending of local subsystems under IF-THEN rules. In addition, based on the differential inclusion theory, the solutions of such discontinuous system are defined in the sense of Filippov. In order to stabilize the considered system in finite time, several decentralized discontinuous state feedback controllers are proposed. Furthermore, by the finite-time stabilization theory and generalized Lyapunov functional method, decentralized control is carried out and several sufficient criteria are derived to ensure the finite-time stabilization of the concerned system. Correspondingly, the settling times for stabilization are given. Finally, the proposed methodology is illustrated by an example.

Global Dynamic Nonrecursive Realization of Decentralized Nonsmooth Exact Tracking for Large-Scale Interconnected Nonlinear Systems

This paper investigates a global decentralized nonsmooth tracking algorithm for a class of interconnected nonlinear systems with strongly coupled interactions. As a main contribution, a nonrecursive dynamic exact tracking control design is proposed for the decentralized control issue which facilitates an intrinsic separation of control law design and stability analysis. First, a fully decentralized extended high-gain observer is constructed to enable the dynamic controller design and performance recovery with the presence of additional disturbances. Then by integrating a nonrecursive homogeneous domination strategy, now the decentralized tracking control law can be designed in a very simple and explicit manner whereas the control gains follow the conventional pole placement approach. Moreover, the nonsmooth design framework will render a finite-time convergence rate of the output tracking which is of significance in practices. The effectiveness of the controller is demonstrated by a rigorous stability analysis and simulation verifications.

Finite-time decentralized adaptive neural constrained control for interconnected nonlinear time-delay systems with dynamics couplings among subsystems

The problem of finite-time decentralized neural adaptive constrained control is studied for large-scale nonlinear time-delay systems in the non-affine form. The main features of the considered system are that 1) unknown unmatched time-delay interactions are considered, 2) the couplings among the nested subsystems are involved in uncertain nonlinear systems, 3) based on finite-time stability approach, asymmetric saturation actuators and output constraints are studied in large-scale systems. First, the smooth asymmetric saturation nonlinearity and barrier Lyapunov functions are used to achieve the input and output constraints. Second, the appropriately designed Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional and the property of hyperbolic tangent functions are used to deal with the unknown unmatched time-delay interactions, and the neural networks are employed to approximate the unknown nonlinearities. Note that, due to unknown time-delay interactions and the couplings among subsystems, the controller design is more meaningful and challenging. At last, based on finite-time stability theory and Lyapunov stability theory, a decentralized adaptive controller is proposed, which decreases the number of learning parameters. It is shown that the designed controller can ensure that all closed-loop signals are bounded and the tracking error converges to a small neighborhood of the origin. The simulation studies are presented to show the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Minimal-Approximation-Based Distributed Consensus Tracking of a Class of Uncertain Nonlinear Multiagent Systems With Unknown Control Directions

A minimal-approximation-based distributed adaptive consensus tracking approach is presented for strict-feedback multiagent systems with unknown heterogeneous nonlinearities and control directions under a directed network. Existing approximation-based consensus results for uncertain nonlinear multiagent systems in lower-triangular form have used multiple function approximators in each local controller to approximate unmatched nonlinearities of each follower. Thus, as the follower's order increases, the number of the approximators used in its local controller increases. However, the proposed approach employs only one function approximator to construct the local controller of each follower regardless of the order of the follower. The recursive design methodology using a new error transformation is derived for the proposed minimal-approximation-based design. Furthermore, a bounding lemma on parameters of Nussbaum functions is presented to handle the unknown control direction problem in the minimal-approximation-based distributed consensus tracking framework and the stability of the overall closed-loop system is rigorously analyzed in the Lyapunov sense.