Nathan van de Wouw - Böcker

The problem of asymptotic regulation of the output of a dynamical system plays a central role in control theory. An important variant of this problem is the output regulation problem, which can be used in areas such as s- point control, tracking reference signals and rejecting disturbances generated by an external system, controlled synchronization of dynamical systems, and observer design for autonomous systems. At the moment this is a hot topic in nonlinear control. This book is a result of a four-year research project conducted at the Eindhoven University of Technology. This project, entitled “Robust output regulation for complex dynamical systems,” began with the observation that theproblemofcontrolledsynchronizationofdynamicalsystemscanbecons- ered as a particular case of the output regulation problem. In the beginning of the project, known solutions to the controlled synchronization problem were global and dealt with nonlinear systems having complex (“chaotic”) dyn- ics. At the same time, most of the existing solutions to the nonlinear output regulation problem were local and dealt mostly with exosystems being linear harmonicoscillators. Ourinitialideawas,usingtheresultsfromthecontrolled synchronization problem as a starting point, to extend solutions of the n- linear output regulation problem from the local case to the global case and to avoid restrictive assumptions on the exosystem. As a ?rst step, we started looking for points that were common to these two problems.

This treatment of modern topics relatedto the control of nonlinear systems is a collection of contributionscelebrating the work of Professor Henk Nijmeijer and honoring his 60thbirthday. It addresses several topics that have been the core of ProfessorNijmeijer’s work, namely: the control of nonlinear systems, geometric controltheory, synchronization, coordinated control, convergent systems and thecontrol of underactuated systems. The book presents recent advances in theseareas, contributed by leading international researchers in systems and control.In addition to the theoretical questions treated in the text, particularattention is paid to a number of applications including (mobile) robotics,marine vehicles, neural dynamics and mechanical systems generally.This volume providesa broad picture of the analysis and control of nonlinear systems for scientistsand engineers with an interest in the interdisciplinary field of systems andcontrol theory. The reader will benefit from the expert participants’ ideas on importantopen problems with contributions that represent the state of the art innonlinear control.

Stability of motion is a central theme in the dynamics of mechanical systems. While the stability theory for systems with bilateral constraints is a well-established field, this monograph represents a systematic study of mechanical systems with unilateral constraints, such as unilateral contact, impact and friction. Such unilateral constraints give rise to non-smooth dynamical models for which stability theory is developed in this work.The book starts with the treatise of the mathematical background on non-smooth analysis, measure and integration theory and an introduction to the field of non-smooth dynamical systems. The unilateral constraints are modelled in the framework of set-valued force laws developed in the field of non-smooth mechanics. The embedding of these constitutive models in the dynamics of mechanical systems gives rises to dynamical models with impulsive phenomena. This book uses the mathematical framework of measure differential inclusions to formalise such models. The book proceeds with the presentation of stability results for measure differential inclusions. These stability results are then applied to nonlinear mechanical systems with unilateral constraints. The book closes with the study of the convergence property for a class of measure differential inclusions; a stability property for systems with time-varying inputs which is shown to be highly instrumental in the context of the control of mechanical systems with unilateral constraints.While the book presents a profound stability theory for mechanical systems with unilateral constraints, it also has a tutorial value on the modelling of such systems in the framework of measure differential inclusions. The work will be of interest to engineers, scientists and students working in the field of non-smooth mechanics and dynamics.