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Abstract: When a time-delay system involves multiple imaginary roots (MIRs), the stability analysis will become much more complicated than that in the case with only simple imaginary roots (SIRs). An MIR may exhibit different splitting behaviors and, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, their properties have not been fully investigated. In this paper, we focus on characterizing the invariance properties for MIRs with any multiplicity. Furthermore, the proposed methodology makes it possible to also cover some degenerate cases already encountered and discussed in the literature. In addition, we propose an easily implemented frequency-sweeping method, making it possible to derive the asymptotic behavior without invoking the Puiseux series. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This article presents basic concepts and recent research directions about the stability of sampled-data systems with aperiodic sampling. We focus mainly on the stability problem for systems with arbitrary time-varying sampling intervals which has been addressed in several areas of research in Control Theory. Systems with aperiodic sampling can be seen as time-delay systems, hybrid systems, Input/Output interconnections, discrete-time systems with time-varying parameters, etc. The goal of the article is to provide a structural overview of the progress made on the stability analysis problem. Without being exhaustive, which would be neither possible nor useful, we try to bring together results from diverse communities and present them in a unified manner. For each of the existing approaches, the basic concepts, fundamental results, converse stability theorems (when available), and relations with the other approaches are discussed in detail. Results concerning extensions of Lyapunov and frequency domain methods for systems with aperiodic sampling are recalled, as they allow to derive constructive stability conditions. Furthermore, numerical criteria are presented while indicating the sources of conservatism, the problems that remain open and the possible directions of improvement. At last, some emerging research directions, such as the design of stabilizing sampling sequences, are briefly discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The PID control is favored in controlling industrial processes for its ease of implementation. In this paper we present an analytical study, with an aim at stability robustness, tracking performance, and pole placement of first-order unstable plants under PID control. We employ a multiplicity-induced dominancy (MID) strategy to design and tune PID controller gains, which is shown to possess desirable properties that ensure specified decay rate of the closed-loop response and the stability robustness of the closed-loop system in spite of variations in the delay parameter. We also study the tradeoff between delay robustness and tracking performance of PID controllers. We show that under the constraint of steady-state tracking, the maximal delay robustness range can be computed by solving a unimodal pseudo-concave optimization problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This technical communique introduces a new concept of set invariance with respect to linear discrete time dynamics affected by delay. We are interested in the definition and characterization of sequences of cyclically invariant subsets in the state space. The algebraic conditions established in the late ’80s for linear dynamics are generalized to invariance analysis in the presence of delays for given sequences of polyhedral sets. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In most of the numerical examples of time-delay systems proposed in the literature, the number of unstable characteristic roots remains positive before and after a multiple critical imaginary root (CIR) appears (as the delay, seen as a parameter, increases). This fact may lead to some misunderstandings: (i) A multiple CIR may at most affect the instability degree; (ii) It cannot cause any stability reversals (stability transitions from instability to stability). As far as we know, whether the appearance of a multiple CIR can induce stability is still unclear (in fact, when a CIR generates a stability reversal has not been specifically investigated). In this paper, we provide a finer analysis of stability reversals and some new insights into the classification: the link between the multiplicity of a CIR and the asymptotic behavior with the stabilizing effect. Based on these results, we present an example illustrating that a multiple CIR's asymptotic behavior is able to cause a stability reversal. To the best of the authors' knowledge, such an example is a novelty in the literature on time-delay systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]