Global adaptive neural network control of nonlinear time-varying systems with unknown control coefficients and model uncertainties

Abstract

This paper investigates the adaptive control problem for the strict-feedback nonlinear time-varying system (NTVS) with unknown control coefficients and model uncertainties. To address the problem that the neural network (NN) can only achieve local approximation of unknown nonlinear functions, a novel NN control scheme is proposed. The scheme consists of a NN controller that operates inside the approximation domain and a robust controller that operates outside the approximation domain, and a novel switching function is designed to enable the two controllers to switch smoothly in the vicinity of the approximation domain to ensure that all signals of the closed-loop system are globally uniformly ultimately bounded. To address the problem that unknown time-varying control coefficients are difficult to handle, an adaptive fault-tolerant control scheme is proposed in combination with the congelation of variables method. The scheme employs classical adaptive control to adapt to the variation of unknown control coefficients and robust control to eliminate the time-varying disturbance terms, and introduces a positive integrable time-varying function to achieve asymptotic tracking of an arbitrary reference signal. The combination of these two schemes constitutes a global adaptive neural network control (GANNC) method for the NTVS with unknown control coefficients and model uncertainties. Finally, an adaptive attitude fault-tolerant controller for launch vehicles is designed by using the GANNC method, which can realize the accurate tracking of the attitude control system to the reference command under normal status, strong disturbances and actuator failures, and comparative experiments prove the effectiveness and superiority of the controller.