Hierarchical Lyapunov functions (Q1077350)

A standard procedure for stability analysis of interconnected systems is to construct a composite Lyapunov function for the overall systems from the individual Lyapunov functions of the subsystems, which are assumed to be stable. Once stability is established using a composite Lyapunov function it can further be shown that the system remains stable under structural perturbations in the interconnections, i.e., it is connectively stable ([see the second author, ''Large-scale dynamic systems. Stability and structure.'' (1978; Zbl 0384.93002)]). In this paper, the concepts of composite Lyapunov function and connective stability are extended to systems having a hierarchical structure, that is, systems consisting of a number of interconnected subsystems, which themselves consist of smaller components, and so on. Starting from the lowest level of hierarchy, Lyapunov functions obtained for the subsystems at any level are combined to construct a Lyapunov function for the subsystems at the next higher level, to obtain, finally, a global Lyapunov function. Stability, when established this way, is shown to be hierarchically connective. That is, if the hierarchical structure of the system is represented by a tree, then all the branches of the tree at some level can be broken without affecting the stability. The same would not, in general, be true if the global Lyapunov functions were constructed in one step from the Lyapunov functions of the lowest level components.