Stability of some nonlinear functional differential equations (Q1892159)

The author considers the functional differential equation of retarded type (1) \(\dot x(t)= F(t, x_ t)\), \(t> t_ 0\), \(x_{t_ 0}= \psi: (- \infty, 0]\to \mathbb{R}^ n\), where \(x(t)\in \mathbb{R}^ n\), \(x_ t\) (for a given \(t\)) is the function defined by \(x_ t(\theta)= x(t+ \theta)\), \(\theta\in (-\infty, 0]\), the functional \(F: [t_ 0, \infty)\times C(- \infty, 0]\to \mathbb{R}^ n\) is continuous, \(F(t, 0)\equiv 0\) and \(F\) satisfies a local Lipschitz condition with respect to the second argument. Criteria for various types of stability (uniform asymptotic stability, stability in the first approximation) are obtained via Lyapunov's second method. An important feature of the paper is that a general procedure is proposed to construct a Lyapunov functional for some nonlinear functional differential equations (1).