Robust Stabilization of a Class of Nonlinear Systems via Aperiodic Sensing and Actuation

This article proposes a framework to design a robust controller for a class of nonlinear networked control systems using aperiodic feedback information. Here, the nonlinearity and parameter variations of system model are considered as sources of uncertainty. To tackle the uncertainty in system dynamics, a linear robust control law is derived by applying the optimal control theory. Two different architectures of closed-loop systems are considered. In the first one, system and controller are not collocated; instead they are interconnected by means of a shared communication network. In the second architecture, system, controller and actuator are all collocated with their respective outputs available at all time-instead, sensors and controller are connected through a shared communication channel. In both architectures, the feedback loop is closed through the network. Owing to its shared nature, the network may suffer from bandwidth limitations. To save the network bandwidth, state and input information are transmitted aperiodically within the feedback loop. With this aim, the paper adopts an event-triggered control technique so as to reduce the transmission overhead. Applying Input-to-State Stability theory, we derive two different event-triggered robust control laws that stabilize the uncertain nonlinear system. Finally, we show that the designed event-triggered controllers satisfy the trade-off between control performance and saving in network bandwidth in the presence of uncertainty. The developed control algorithm is implemented and validated through numerical simulations.