New advances in H∞ control and filtering for nonlinear systems

The main objective of this special issue is to summarise recent advances in H∞ control and filtering for nonlinear systems, including time-delay, hybrid and stochastic systems. The published papers provide new ideas and approaches, clearly indicating the advances made in problem statements, methodologies or applications with respect to the existing results. The special issue also includes papers focusing on advanced and non-traditional methods and presenting considerable novelties in theoretical background or experimental setup. Some papers present applications to newly emerging fields, such as network-based control and estimation

Value of Information in Feedback Control

In this article, we investigate the impact of information on networked control systems, and illustrate how to quantify a fundamental property of stochastic processes that can enrich our understanding about such systems. To that end, we develop a theoretical framework for the joint design of an event trigger and a controller in optimal event-triggered control. We cover two distinct information patterns: perfect information and imperfect information. In both cases, observations are available at the event trigger instantly, but are transmitted to the controller sporadically with one-step delay. For each information pattern, we characterize the optimal triggering policy and optimal control policy such that the corresponding policy profile represents a Nash equilibrium. Accordingly, we quantify the value of information $\operatorname{VoI}_k$ as the variation in the cost-to-go of the system given an observation at time $k$. Finally, we provide an algorithm for approximation of the value of information, and synthesize a closed-form suboptimal triggering policy with a performance guarantee that can readily be implemented

Maximum Entropy/Optimal Projection (MEOP) control design synthesis: Optimal quantification of the major design tradeoffs

The underlying philosophy and motivation of the optimal projection/maximum entropy (OP/ME) stochastic modeling and reduced control design methodology for high order systems with parameter uncertainties are discussed. The OP/ME design equations for reduced-order dynamic compensation including the effect of parameter uncertainties are reviewed. The application of the methodology to several Large Space Structures (LSS) problems of representative complexity is illustrated

Sampled-data synchronization control of dynamical networks with stochastic sampling

Copyright @ 2012 IEEEThis technical note is concerned with the sampled-data synchronization control problem for a class of dynamical networks. The sampling period considered here is assumed to be time-varying that switches between two different values in a random way with given probability. The addressed synchronization control problem is first formulated as an exponentially mean-square stabilization problem for a new class of dynamical networks that involve both the multiple probabilistic interval delays (MPIDs) and the sector-bounded nonlinearities (SBNs). Then, a novel Lyapunov functional is constructed to obtain sufficient conditions under which the dynamical network is exponentially mean-square stable. Both Gronwall's inequality and Jenson integral inequality are utilized to substantially simplify the derivation of the main results. Subsequently, a set of sampled-data synchronization controllers is designed in terms of the solution to certain matrix inequalities that can be solved effectively by using available software. Finally, a numerical simulation example is employed to show the effectiveness of the proposed sampled-data synchronization control scheme.This work was supported in part by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) of the UK under Grant GR/S27658/01, the Royal Society of the UK, the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grants 61028008, 60974030, 61134009 and 61104125, the National 973 Program of China under Grant 2009CB320600, and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Germany

Non-fragile H∞ control with randomly occurring gain variations, distributed delays and channel fadings

This study is concerned with the non-fragile H∞ control problem for a class of discrete-time systems subject to randomly occurring gain variations (ROGVs), channel fadings and infinite-distributed delays. A new stochastic phenomenon (ROGVs), which is governed by a sequence of random variables with a certain probabilistic distribution, is put forward to better reflect the reality of the randomly occurring fluctuation of controller gains implemented in networked environments. A modified stochastic Rice fading model is then exploited to account for both channel fadings and random time-delays in a unified representation. The channel coefficients are a set of mutually independent random variables which abide by any (not necessarily Gaussian) probability density function on [0, 1]. Attention is focused on the analysis and design of a non-fragile H∞ outputfeedback controller such that the closed-loop control system is stochastically stable with a prescribed H∞ performance. Through intensive stochastic analysis, sufficient conditions are established for the desired stochastic stability and H∞ disturbance attenuation, and the addressed non-fragile control problem is then recast as a convex optimisation problem solvable via the semidefinite programme method. An example is finally provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed design method

A stochastic MPC scheme for distributed systems with multiplicative uncertainty

This paper presents a novel Distributed Stochastic Model Predictive Control algorithm for networks of linear systems with multiplicative uncertainties and local chance constraints on the states and control inputs. The chance constraints are approximated via the Cantelli-Chebyshev inequality by means of expected value and covariance. The algorithm is based on the distributed Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers and yields in a distributedly implementable, recursive feasible and mean square stable control scheme. The aforementioned properties are guaranteed through a distributed invariant set and distributed terminal constraints for the mean and covariance. The paper closes with an illustrative numerical example for a system with three interconnected subsystems, where the distributed design procedure is benchmarked with a centralized approach.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figure