Circle criteria, small-gain conditions and internal stability for infinite-dimensional systems (Q1180966)

Let \(V\), \(W\) denote real Hilbert spaces with \(V\supset W\). The author is interested in stability properties of feedback systems with infinite- dimensional state space \(W\) which consist of a linear time-invariant system \(\dot x(t)=Ax(t)+Bu(t)\), \(x(0)=x_ 0\), \(y(t)=Cx(t)\) (where \(A\) is the infinitesimal generator of a strongly continuous semigroup on \(W\), \(C\in{\mathcal L}(W,\mathbb{R}^ p)\), \(B\in{\mathcal L}(\mathbb{R}^ p,V))\) in the forward loop and a sector bounded, possibly time-varying, memoryless nonlinearity \(u(t)=\varphi(t,y(t))\), \(|\varphi(t,y)|\leq\gamma| y|\), in the feedback loop. In particular, he investigates the connections between input-output stability and internal stability, i.e. (possibly exponential) Lyapunov stability in the state space. He presents an ``internal version'' of the small-gain theorem (stating that for a large class of systems the small- gain condition in \(L^ 2\) is sufficient for internal stability, and that the condition is sharp in the sense that there exist unstable feedback systems of loop gain equal to one) and uses this to prove that the circle criterion ensures global exponential stability of the state.