Lyapunov Functions For Time-varying Systems Research Articles

Strict Lyapunov functions for time-varying systems with persistency of excitation

We study the stability of the origin for a class of linear time-varying systems with a drift that may be divided in two parts. Under the action of the first, a function of the trajectories is guaranteed to converge to zero; under the action of the second, the solutions are restricted to a periodic orbit. Hence, by assumption, the system’s trajectories are bounded. Our main results focus on two generic case studies that are motivated by common nonlinear control problems: model-reference adaptive control, control of nonholonomic systems, tracking control problems, to name a few. Then, based on the standing assumption that the system’s dynamics is persistently excited, we construct a time-dependent Lyapunov function that has a negative definite derivative. Our main statements may be regarded as off-the-shelf tools of analysis for linear and nonlinear time-varying systems.

Lyapunov functions for time-varying systems satisfying generalized conditions of Matrosov theorem

The classical Matrosov theorem concludes uniform asymptotic stability of time-varying systems via a weak Lyapunov function (positive definite, decrescent, with negative semi-definite derivative along solutions) and another auxiliary function with derivative that is strictly nonzero where the derivative of the Lyapunov function is zero (Mastrosov in J Appl Math Mech 26:1337–1353, 1962). Recently, several generalizations of the classical Matrosov theorem have been reported in Loria et al. (IEEE Trans Autom Control 50:183–198, 2005). None of these results provides a construction of a strong Lyapunov function (positive definite, decrescent, with negative definite derivative along solutions) which is a very useful analysis and controller design tool for nonlinear systems. Inspired by generalized Matrosov conditions in Loria et al. (IEEE Trans Autom Control 50:183–198, 2005), we provide a construction of a strong Lyapunov function via an appropriate weak Lyapunov function and a set of Lyapunov-like functions whose derivatives along solutions of the system satisfy inequalities that have a particular triangular structure. Our results will be very useful in a range of situations where strong Lyapunov functions are needed, such as robustness analysis and Lyapunov function-based controller redesign. We illustrate our results by constructing a strong Lyapunov function for a simple Euler-Lagrange system controlled by an adaptive controller and use this result to determine an ISS controller.

Further remarks on strict input-to-state stable Lyapunov functions for time-varying systems

We study the stability properties of a class of time-varying non-linear systems. We assume that non-strict input-to-state stable (ISS) Lyapunov functions for our systems are given and posit a mild persistency of excitation condition on our given Lyapunov functions which guarantee the existence of strict ISS Lyapunov functions for our systems. Next, we provide simple direct constructions of explicit strict ISS Lyapunov functions for our systems by applying an integral smoothing method. We illustrate our constructions using a tracking problem for a rotating rigid body.

Strict Lyapunov functions for time-varying systems

Uniformly asymptotically stable periodic time-varying systems for which is known a Lyapunov function with a derivative along the trajectories non-positive and negative definite in the state variable on non-empty open intervals of the time are considered. For these systems, strict Lyapunov functions are constructed.