Controller design for discrete-time nonlinear feed-forward cascades with application to bacterial quorum sensing

Abstract

This paper investigates the semi-global practical asymptotic stability (SPA stability) of a class of nonlinear feed-forward cascade systems. In particular, using general theories presented on the stabilization of sampled-data systems, a SPA stabilizing controller has been designed and the essential conditions for the semi-global asymptotic stability of this class of nonlinear systems have been presented. In doing so, using the approximated discrete-time model of a general form of feed-forward cascade systems in conjugation with the idea of cross-term constructed Lyapunov function, sampled data stabilizing conditions for the discretized system have been investigated and subsequently, the proper SPA stabilizing controller has been derived. To illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme, the designed controller is applied on three examples. First, the framework has been applied to a nonlinear mathematical example and then to the well-known ball and beam system. In the end, the Quorum Sensing mechanism has been investigated as a novel application that extends the use of this set of frameworks to biological systems.