Robustness analysis of digital feedback control systems with time-varying sampling periods (Q5950725)

The authors study robustness properties of a class of digital feedback control systems with time-varying sampling periods consisting of an interconnection of a continuous-time nonlinear plant (described by systems of first-order ordinary differential equations), a nonlinear digital controller (described by systems of first-order ordinary difference equations), and appropriate interface elements between the plant and controller (A/D and D/A converters). For the case of vanishing perturbations, robust stability results of the trivial solution of the perturbed system (in the sense of Lyapunov) are established, while for the case of nonvanishing perturbations, robust boundedness results (i.e., robust Lagrange stability results) are obtained. The latter are used for analyzing the qualitative effects of incorporating quantizers into a linearized system, where the quantization effects are viewed as perturbation terms.