Qualitative Studies of Nonlinear Hybrid Systems

A hybrid system is a dynamical system that exhibits both continuous and discrete dynamic behavior. Hybrid systems arise in a wide variety of important applications in diverse areas, ranging from biology to computer science to air traffic dynamics. The interaction of continuous- and discrete-time dynamics in a hybrid system often leads to very rich dynamical behavior and phenomena that are not encountered in purely continuous- or discrete-time systems. Investigating the dynamical behavior of hybrid systems is of great theoretical and practical importance. The objectives of this thesis are to develop the qualitative theory of nonlinear hybrid systems with impulses, time-delay, switching modes, and stochastic disturbances, to develop algorithms and perform analysis for hybrid systems with an emphasis on stability and control, and to apply the theory and methods to real-world application problems. Switched nonlinear systems are formulated as a family of nonlinear differential equations, called subsystems, together with a switching signal that selects the continuous dynamics among the subsystems. Uniform stability is studied emphasizing the situation where both stable and unstable subsystems are present. Uniformity of stability refers to both the initial time and a family of switching signals. Stabilization of nonlinear systems via state-dependent switching signal is investigated. Based on assumptions on a convex linear combination of the nonlinear vector fields, a generalized minimal rule is proposed to generate stabilizing switching signals that are well-defined and do not exhibit chattering or Zeno behavior. Impulsive switched systems are hybrid systems exhibiting both impulse and switching effects, and are mathematically formulated as a switched nonlinear system coupled with a sequence of nonlinear difference equations that act on the switched system at discrete times. Impulsive switching signals integrate both impulsive and switching laws that specify when and how impulses and switching occur. Invariance principles can be used to investigate asymptotic stability in the absence of a strict Lyapunov function. An invariance principle is established for impulsive switched systems under weak dwell-time signals. Applications of this invariance principle provide several asymptotic stability criteria. Input-to-state stability notions are formulated in terms of two different measures, which not only unify various stability notions under the stability theory in two measures, but also bridge this theory with the existent input/output theories for nonlinear systems. Input-to-state stability results are obtained for impulsive switched systems under generalized dwell-time signals. Hybrid time-delay systems are hybrid systems with dependence on the past states of the systems. Switched delay systems and impulsive switched systems are special classes of hybrid time-delay systems. Both invariance property and input-to-state stability are extended to cover hybrid time-delay systems. Stochastic hybrid systems are hybrid systems subject to random disturbances, and are formulated using stochastic differential equations. Focused on stochastic hybrid systems with time-delay, a fundamental theory regarding existence and uniqueness of solutions is established. Stabilization schemes for stochastic delay systems using state-dependent switching and stabilizing impulses are proposed, both emphasizing the situation where all the subsystems are unstable. Concerning general stochastic hybrid systems with time-delay, the Razumikhin technique and multiple Lyapunov functions are combined to obtain several Razumikhin-type theorems on both moment and almost sure stability of stochastic hybrid systems with time-delay. Consensus problems in networked multi-agent systems and global convergence of artificial neural networks are related to qualitative studies of hybrid systems in the sense that dynamic switching, impulsive effects, communication time-delays, and random disturbances are ubiquitous in networked systems. Consensus protocols are proposed for reaching consensus among networked agents despite switching network topologies, communication time-delays, and measurement noises. Focused on neural networks with discontinuous neuron activation functions and mixed time-delays, sufficient conditions for existence and uniqueness of equilibrium and global convergence and stability are derived using both linear matrix inequalities and M-matrix type conditions. Numerical examples and simulations are presented throughout this thesis to illustrate the theoretical results

Impulsive Control of Dynamical Networks

Dynamical networks (DNs) consist of a large set of interconnected nodes with each node being a fundamental unit with detailed contents. A great number of natural and man-made networks such as social networks, food networks, neural networks, WorldWideWeb, electrical power grid, etc., can be effectively modeled by DNs. The main focus of the present thesis is on delay-dependent impulsive control of DNs. To study the impulsive control problem of DNs, we firstly construct stability results for general nonlinear time-delay systems with delayed impulses by using the method of Lyapunov functionals and Razumikhin technique. Secondly, we study the consensus problem of multi-agent systems with both fixed and switching topologies. A hybrid consensus protocol is proposed to take into consideration of continuous-time communications among agents and delayed instant information exchanges on a sequence of discrete times. Then, a novel hybrid consensus protocol with dynamically changing interaction topologies is designed to take the time-delay into account in both the continuous-time communication among agents and the instant information exchange at discrete moments. We also study the consensus problem of networked multi-agent systems. Distributed delays are considered in both the agent dynamics and the proposed impulsive consensus protocols. Lastly, stabilization and synchronization problems of DNs under pinning impulsive control are studied. A pinning algorithm is incorporated with the impulsive control method. We propose a delay-dependent pinning impulsive controller to investigate the synchronization of linear delay-free DNs on time scales. Then, we apply the pinning impulsive controller proposed for the delay-free networks to stabilize time-delay DNs. Results show that the delay-dependent pinning impulsive controller can successfully stabilize and synchronize DNs with/without time-delay. Moreover, we design a type of pinning impulsive controllers that relies only on the network states at history moments (not on the states at each impulsive instant). Sufficient conditions on stabilization of time-delay networks are obtained, and results show that the proposed pinning impulsive controller can effectively stabilize the network even though only time-delay states are available to the pinning controller at each impulsive instant. We further consider the pinning impulsive controllers with both discrete and distributed time-delay effects to synchronize the drive and response systems modeled by globally Lipschitz time-delay systems. As an extension study of pinning impulsive control approach, we investigate the synchronization problem of systems and networks governed by PDEs

Integral Input-to-State Stability of Nonlinear Time-Delay Systems with Delay-Dependent Impulse Effects

This paper studies integral input-to-state stability (iISS) of nonlinear impulsive systems with time-delay in both the continuous dynamics and the impulses. Several iISS results are established by using the method of Lyapunov-Krasovskii functionals. For impulsive systems with iISS continuous dynamics and destabilizing impulses, we derive two iISS criteria that guarantee the uniform iISS of the whole system provided that the time period between two successive impulse moments is appropriately bounded from below. Then we provide an iISS result for systems with unstable continuous dynamics and stabilizing impulses. For this scenario, it is shown that the iISS properties are guaranteed if the impulses occur frequently enough. For impulsive systems with stabilizing impulses and stable continuous dynamics for zero input, we obtain an iISS result which shows that the entire system is uniformly iISS over arbitrary impulse time sequences. As applications, iISS properties of a class of bilinear systems are studied in details with simulations to demonstrate the presented results

Stability of interconnected impulsive systems with and without time-delays using Lyapunov methods

In this paper we consider input-to-state stability (ISS) of impulsive control systems with and without time-delays. We prove that if the time-delay system possesses an exponential Lyapunov-Razumikhin function or an exponential Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional, then the system is uniformly ISS provided that the average dwell-time condition is satisfied. Then, we consider large-scale networks of impulsive systems with and without time-delays and we prove that the whole network is uniformly ISS under a small-gain and a dwell-time condition. Moreover, these theorems provide us with tools to construct a Lyapunov function (for time-delay systems - a Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional or a Lyapunov-Razumikhin function) and the corresponding gains of the whole system, using the Lyapunov functions of the subsystems and the internal gains, which are linear and satisfy the small-gain condition. We illustrate the application of the main results on examples

Mathematical control of complex systems

Copyright © 2013 ZidongWang et al.This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited

A looped-functional approach for robust stability analysis of linear impulsive systems

A new functional-based approach is developed for the stability analysis of linear impulsive systems. The new method, which introduces looped-functionals, considers non-monotonic Lyapunov functions and leads to LMIs conditions devoid of exponential terms. This allows one to easily formulate dwell-times results, for both certain and uncertain systems. It is also shown that this approach may be applied to a wider class of impulsive systems than existing methods. Some examples, notably on sampled-data systems, illustrate the efficiency of the approach.Comment: 13 pages, 2 figures, Accepted at Systems & Control Letter