A general canonical form for feedback passivity of nonlinear systems (Q4955094)

SISO affine control systems in \(\mathbb{R}^n\) of the form \[ \begin{cases} \dot x=f(x)+ g(x)u\\ y=h(x) \end{cases} \tag{*} \] are considered. They are endowed with a storage function \(V(x)\) which satisfies a transversality condition \(L_g V(x)\neq 0\). The main result of the paper provides the following rather straightforward decomposition of the drift term in (*) \[ \begin{cases} \dot x=J(x) {\partial V\over\partial x}(x)+ S_p(x){\partial V\over \partial x}(x)+S_n(x) {\partial V\over\partial x}(x)+ g(x)u\\ y=h(x),\end{cases} \tag{**} \] where \(J(x)= {1\over 2L_gV}(f(x)g^T(x)-g(x)f^T(x))\) is a skew-symmetric matrix, \(S_p(x)+ S_n (x)= {1\over 2L_gV}(g(x)f^T(x) +f(x)g^T(x))\) is a symmetric matrix. This decomposition is called the Passivity Based Control Canonical Form of the control system. This canonical form appears to be useful in designing tracking controllers for the system (*) within the passivity methodology.