Lyapunov stability of nonlinear time-varying differential equations (Q1582282)

The paper is concerned with a development of Lyapunov's direct method for ordinary differential equations \[ \dot x=f(t,x), \qquad f(t,0)=0,\tag{1} \] with \(f:\mathbb{R}^{+}\times W\to \mathbb{R}^{n}\), \(\mathbb{R}^{+}=[0,+\infty)\), \(W\) is a neighborhood of the origin in \(\mathbb{R}^{n}\), \(\|f(t,x)\|\leq M(t)\) for an integrable function \(M\) satisfying uniformly with respect to \(t\geq 0\) the condition: \(\lim_{h\to 0}\int_{t}^{t+h}M(s) ds=0\). The function \(V:\mathbb{R}^{+}\times W\to \mathbb{R}\) is said to be a Lyapunov-like function for equation (1) if it satisfies the following assumptions: (i) \(a(t)\|x\|^{\alpha}\leq V(t,x)\leq b(t)\|x\|^{\beta}\) for some constants \(\alpha>0\), \(\beta>0\), a nondecreasing function \(a:\mathbb{R}^{+}\to \mathbb{R}^{+}\setminus\{0\}\) and a nonincreasing function \(b:\mathbb{R}^{+}\to \mathbb{R}^{+}\setminus\{0\}\); (ii) \(D_{-}V(t,x)\leq -c(t)\gamma(V(t,x))\) for some nondecreasing functions \(c,\gamma:\mathbb{R}^{+}\to \mathbb{R}^{+}\setminus\{0\}\), with \[ D_{-}V(t,x)=\liminf_{y\to 0, h\to 0^{+}} \frac{V(t+h,x+hf(t,x)+hy)-V(t,x)}{h}. \] The first main theorem proclaims: if equation (1) admits a Lyapunov-like function then the zero solution is asymptotically stable. The second theorem on asymptotic stability is formulated by using a generalized Lyapunov-like function introduced in the paper. To illustrate the main results two simple examples are provided. As application a theorem on stabilizability of a class of control systems is also given. The authors introduce a nonstandard definition of the uniform asymptotic stability which is widely accepted in the literature as a definition of the equiasymptotic stability (cf. on page 28 in [\textit{T. Yoshizawa}, Stability theory by Lyapunov's second method. Tokyo: The Math. Soc. of Japan (1966; Zbl 0144.10802)]).