Disturbance attenuating controller design for strict-feedback systems with structurally unknown dynamics (Q5943837)

The authors consider a general nonlinear strict-feedback system described by the following equations: NEWLINE\[NEWLINE\left\{\begin{aligned} \dot x_i&=b_i(x^i)x_{i+1}+g_i(x^i)+h_i^T(x^i)w_i,\quad x^i:=x_{[i]},\quad i=1, \dots,r-1,\\ \dot x_r&=b_r(x^r)u+g_r(x^r)+h_r^T(x^r)w_r,\quad x^r:=[x_{[r]}^T,x_z^T]^T,\\ \dot x_z&=g_z(x^r,w_z),\\ y&=x_1, \end{aligned} \right.NEWLINE\]NEWLINE where \(x_z\in\mathbb R^{n-r}\) represents the state of the zero dynamics, \(u\in\mathbb R\) is the control input, \(y\) is the scalar output, and \(w_i\) and \(w_z\) are vector-valued external disturbances. The nonlinear functions \(h_i\), \(b_i\), \(g_i\), and \(g_z\) are sufficiently smooth, with only \(h_i'\)s known. A robust state-feedback controller under which the system output tracks a given signal arbitrarily well, and all signals in the closed-loop system remain bounded, is designed. A relevant disturbance attenuation inequality is satisfied by the closed-loop signals. These results are extended to the case where only the output variable is available for feedback. In this case, for tractability, the nonlinear functions in the system dynamics are restricted to depend only on the measured output variable, which results in a strict output-feedback form.