Decentralised fault-tolerant tracking control for interconnected nonlinear time delay systems using dynamic event triggering mechanism

Abstract

In this study, a novel decentralised fault-tolerant control strategy is developed for a class of interconnected nonlinear time delay systems with unmeasurable state variables and actuator faults by using dynamic event triggering mechanism. The interconnected system model includes nonlinear time delay functions and unstructured uncertainties, which could be identified by the radial basis function neural networks approximation technique. The adaptive nonlinear observer is designed for each interconnected subsystem to obtain the estimated values of unmeasurable state variables and unknown system faults simultaneously. Then, a decentralised fault-tolerant tracking controller is designed for the considered interconnected time delay systems using both backstepping control procedures and a dynamic event triggering mechanism, which has the smaller event trigger frequency by comparing the traditional static event-triggered control scheme, such that the tracking error signals converge to a small neighbourhood near the origin and all the signals of the closed-loop system are globally bounded. Finally, a chemical reactor example is given to illustrate the feasibility and significance of the designed control scheme.

Keywords:

• Dynamic event triggering mechanism
• interconnected time delay system
• fault tolerant tracking control
• backstepping control

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Postgraduate Research and Practice Innovation Program of Jiangsu Province, China, under Grant KYCX20-0823.

Notes on contributors

Zhifeng Gao

Zhifeng Gao received the Ph.D. degree from Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, China, in 2011. He is currently an Associate Professor with the Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, China. His research interests include fault tolerant control with its application in nonlinear systems.

Donghao Liu

Donghao Liu received the B.Eng. degree from Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, China, in 2019. Now he is currently pursuing the masters degree in Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications. His research interests include fault tolerant control with its application in industry production systems.

Moshu Qian

Moshu Qian received the Ph.D. degree from Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, China, in 2016. She is currently an Associate Professor with Nanjing Tech University. Her research interests include robust control, fault diagnosis, fault–tolerant control, and their applications in nonlinear systems.