Robust nonlinear H ∞ control based on the incremental gain

Abstract

SummaryThe incremental gain is proposed as an alternative to the usual gain for designing nonlinear H ∞ controllers. Considering a class of plants with Lipschitz nonlinearities and using linear matrix inequalities, a state feedback controller is designed such that the closed‐loop system is exponentially stable in the absence of disturbance inputs and has incremental gain less than or equal to a minimized number in the presence of disturbances as well as model uncertainties. Moreover, a norm‐wise robustness analysis of the proposed technique against nonlinear uncertainties has been accomplished. Our result is verified through stabilization of both certain and uncertain systems in an incremental sense and also input tracking of a chaotic plant. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.