Stability analysis for neutral delay-differential systems (Q5950729)

The authors consider the neutral delay-differential systems \[ \dot{x}(t)=Ax(t)+Bx(t-h)+C\dot{x}(t-h) \] with the initial condition function \[ x(t_0+\theta)=\varphi (\theta),\quad \forall \theta \in [-h, 0], \] where \(x(t)\in \mathbb{R}^n\) is the state vector, \(A, B\) and \(C\in \mathbb{R}^{n\times n}\) are constant matrices, \(h\) is a positive constant time-delay, \(\varphi (\cdot)\) is the given continuously differentiable function on \([-h, 0]\), and the system matrix \(A\) is assumed to be a Hurwitz matrix. By using Lyapunov's second method, two new sufficient conditions for the asymptotic stability of the systems are obtained. One is a delay-independent criterion which investigates the stability of the system without consideration of the size of \(h\), the other is a delay-dependent criterion which can give the maximum allowable bound of \(h\). These conditions are expressed in terms of LMI to find less conservative criteria, and can be applied under more relaxed assumptions. Solutions to the LMIs can be easily given by various effective optimization algorithms. Several interesting examples are also included to show the application of the proposed method.