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This paper reconsiders the iterative learning control (ILC) problem for variable trial lengths via compensating output data by using an auxiliary predictive model when the controlled process does not reach the desired trial length. Moreover, this paper aims to propose a general and data-driven ILC method without requiring any explicit mechanistic model information. Specifically, an iterative difference with state transition expression is performed at first over the desired trial length in iteration domain to build an auxiliary predictive model for the iterative input–output dynamics of the linear discrete-time system. Then, an auxiliary predictive compensation-based ILC (APC-ILC) method is presented by defining an expanded output variable in which the predictive output is incorporated to compensate the unavailable output data due to the shorter operation length. The learning gain is iteration-time-varying and is updated using real-time data to adapt to system changes. Furthermore, the proposed learning control law contains additional input information to further improve the control performance. Theoretical analysis and simulations further verify the effectiveness of the proposed APC-ILC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study how to efficiently allocate the infinitesimal divisible resource under auction mechanism in a dynamic way. We propose a Vickrey–Clarke–Groves-type auction mechanism with a 2-D bid which specifies a per unit price and a maximum of the demand. Due to the absence of enough information related to the infinite dimensional valuations of individual players in a single-bid strategy, it is challenging to implement the efficient Nash equilibrium (NE) in a dynamic way. In this paper, we introduce a pair of parameters related to players’ valuations, and design a decentralized dynamic process assisted with this pair of values, such that at each iteration, a single player updates its best bid under a constrained set of demand. Under the proposed auction mechanism, we show the incentive compatibility, efficiency, and uniqueness of the NE. Furthermore, our method is guaranteed to converge to the efficient NE, and it presents the enhanced convergence performance compared with those methods proposed in the literature. Case studies are given to demonstrate the results developed in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper is concerned with iterative learning control (ILC) algorithms for two-dimensional (2-D) linear discrete systems described by the first Fornasini–Marchesini model (FMMI) with iteration-varying reference trajectories/profiles. The variation of reference trajectories in iteration domain is represented by a high-order internal model (HOIM) formula. Robustness and convergence of two types of HOIM-based ILC laws with different boundary conditions are investigated, respectively. A strategy employed in this paper is to reconstruct the HOIM-based ILC process of the 2-D linear FMMI system into a set of 2-D linear inequalities or a 2-D linear Roesser model such that sufficient robustness/convergence conditions of the HOIM-based ILC laws are obtained. Under random boundary conditions, the designed ILC law (9) is capable to drive the ILC tracking error into a bounded range. Moreover, under the HOIM-based boundary conditions, a perfect tracking to the iteration-varying reference trajectories can be achieved by utilizing the proposed ILC law (32). Two simulation examples are given to validate the effectiveness of the two proposed ILC algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When solving constrained optimization problems (COPs) by evolutionary algorithms, the search algorithm plays a crucial role. In general, we expect that the search algorithm has the capability to balance not only diversity and convergence but also constraints and objective function during the evolution. For this purpose, this paper proposes a composite differential evolution (DE) for constrained optimization, which includes three different trial vector generation strategies with distinct advantages. In order to strike a balance between diversity and convergence, one of these three trial vector generation strategies is able to increase diversity, and the other two exhibit the property of convergence. In addition, to accomplish the tradeoff between constraints and objective function, one of the two trial vector generation strategies for convergence is guided by the individual with the least degree of constraint violation in the population, and the other is guided by the individual with the best objective function value in the population. After producing offspring by the proposed composite DE, the feasibility rule and the $\boldsymbol {\varepsilon }$ constrained method are combined elaborately for selection in this paper. Moreover, a restart scheme is proposed to help the population jump out of a local optimum in the infeasible region for some extremely complicated COPs. By assembling the above techniques together, a constrained composite DE is proposed. The experiments on two sets of benchmark test functions with various features, i.e., 24 test functions from IEEE CEC2006 and 18 test functions with 10 dimensions and 30 dimensions from IEEE CEC2010, have demonstrated that the proposed method shows better or at least competitive performance against other state-of-the-art methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a united-based imperialist competitive algorithm (UICA) for compensatory neural fuzzy systems. The original imperialist competitive algorithm (ICA) comprises numerous empires in the population, and each empire comprises one imperialist and some colonies. Each country represents a feasible solution in the empire, and the more favorable solutions become imperialists, taking over less favorable solutions (i.e., colonies). In the ICA, each colony moves toward its relevant imperialist according to an assimilation policy. This paper proposes a UICA that focuses on this assimilation policy to explore the characteristics of the colonies. The assimilation policy consists of three major parts in this paper. In the first part, a colony searches for the best previous position of the colony. In the second part, the colony faces the best-so-far imperialist. In the third part, the colony moves toward the corresponding imperialist of the colony. The proposed UICA was applied to nonlinear system problems, and the experimental results indicated that the proposed UICA is effective. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A specific class of nonlinear systems, admitting finite-duration attractors (FDAs), is introduced in this paper, and used for consensus of multiagent systems (MASs). The advantage is that one can obtain a closed-form solution for the settling time function of the presented nonlinear systems. Such a system exhibits a two-phase convergence process, and its settling time function takes values over a finite duration. However, the duration width changes with respect to the initial condition. The FDA-based consensus protocol is shown to make the MAS undertaken achieve finite-duration convergence. With illustrative examples, the perfect consensus property is verified for MASs with or without a leader agent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the matrix function optimization under the orthonormal constraint on the matrix variable. By introducing an index-notation-arrangement-based chain rule (I-Chain rule), we obtain the gradient of the cost function and propose a revisited orthonormal-constraint-based projected gradient method to locate a minimum of an objective/cost function of matrix variables iteratively subject to orthonormal constraint. To guarantee the convergence the proposed method, existing schemes require the gradient can be represented by the multiplication of a symmetrical matrix and the matrix variable itself. This condition has been relaxed in this paper. New techniques are proposed to establish the convergence property of the iterative algorithm. Simulation results show the effectiveness of our framework. This paper allows more extensive applications of matrix function optimization problems in science and engineering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The finite-iteration tracking for singular coupled systems with packet-dropping learning controllers is discussed in this paper. The singular coupled systems are constructed to describe systems with some algebraic constraints, and iterative learning controllers are then designed to achieve the finite-iteration tracking of singular systems. The definition of the finite-iteration tracking is first proposed and the settling iteration is explicitly calculated. Moreover, the iterative learning controllers are designed to consider the case of packet losses. Simulation results are given to elaborate the correctness of the given theorems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the previous work, Zhang et al. developed a special type of recurrent neural networks called Zhang neural network (ZNN) with continuous-time and discrete-time forms for time-varying matrix inversion. In this paper, a novel discrete-time ZNN (DTZNN) model for time-varying matrix inversion is proposed and investigated. Specifically, a new numerical difference rule based on Taylor series expansion is established in this paper for first-order derivative approximation. Then, by exploiting this Taylor-type difference rule, the novel DTZNN model, which is a five-step iteration algorithm, is thus proposed for time-varying matrix inversion. Theoretical results are also presented for the proposed DTZNN model to show its excellent computational property. Comparative numerical results with three illustrative examples further substantiate the efficacy and superiority of the proposed DTZNN model for time-varying matrix inversion compared with previous DTZNN models. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we introduce a novel method for the discovery of value functions for Markov decision processes (MDPs). This method, which we call value function discovery (VFD), is based on ideas from the evolutionary algorithm field. VFDs key feature is that it discovers descriptions of value functions that are algebraic in nature. This feature is unique, because the descriptions include the model parameters of the MDP. The algebraic expression of the value function discovered by VFD can be used in several scenarios, e.g., conversion to a policy (with one-step policy improvement) or control of systems with time-varying parameters. The work in this paper is a first step toward exploring potential usage scenarios of discovered value functions. We give a detailed description of VFD and illustrate its application on an example MDP. For this MDP, we let VFD discover an algebraic description of a value function that closely resembles the optimal value function. The discovered value function is then used to obtain a policy, which we compare numerically to the optimal policy of the MDP. The resulting policy shows near-optimal performance on a wide range of model parameters. Finally, we identify and discuss future application scenarios of discovered value functions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents an alternative adaptive parameter estimation framework for nonlinear systems with time-varying parameters. Unlike existing techniques that rely on the polynomial approximation of time-varying parameters, the proposed method can directly estimate the unknown time-varying parameters. Moreover, this paper proposes several new adaptive laws driven by the derived information of parameter estimation errors, which achieve faster convergence rate than conventional gradient descent algorithms. In particular, the exponential error convergence can be rigorously proved under the well-recognized persistent excitation condition. The robustness of the developed adaptive estimation schemes against bounded disturbances is also studied. Comparative simulation results reveal that the proposed approaches can achieve better estimation performance than several other estimation algorithms. Finally, the proposed parameter estimation methods are verified by conducting experiments based on a roto-magnet plant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper suggests a position-tracking algorithm for the outer-loop through the invariant dynamic surface approach for balancing robot applications. The main feature is to devise a dynamic surface representing the target position-tracking performance with variable cut-off frequency. The proposed controller makes the dynamic surface invariant while updating the closed-loop cut-off frequency accordingly with the self-tuner. The closed-loop properties are rigorously analyzed. The experimental verification result shows that the proposed controller establishes the 48% enhancement of the circular tracking performance in comparison with the feedback linearization method, where the LEGO Mindstorms EV3 is used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the problem of data driven iterative learning control (DDILC) for a class of nonaffine nonlinear systems subject to data quantization and sensor saturation. Two novel quantized DDILC (QDDILC) algorithms are proposed based on saturated and quantized information of system outputs. The convergence of the proposed QDDILC algorithms is strictly proved and the effects of output saturation and data quantification are also analyzed. It is shown that sensor saturation does not change the convergence property, thus it causes the convergence rate to slow down. For the QDDILC algorithm, data quantization will cause the tracking error to converge to a bound depending on the quantization level. However, the modified QDDILC algorithm, which using the different quantization scheme from QDDILC algorithm, can ensure that the tracking error converges to zero. Illustrative simulations are exploited to verify the theoretical results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is generally accepted that the essential goal of many-objective optimization is the balance between convergence and diversity. For constrained many-objective optimization problems (CMaOPs), the feasibility of solutions should be considered as well. Then the real challenge of constrained many-objective optimization can be generalized to the balance among convergence, diversity, and feasibility. In this paper, a tri-goal evolution framework is proposed for CMaOPs. The proposed framework carefully designs two indicators for convergence and diversity, respectively, and converts the constraints into the third indicator for feasibility. Since the essential goal of constrained many-objective optimization is to balance convergence, diversity, and feasibility, the philosophy of the proposed framework matches the essential goal of constrained many-objective optimization well. Thus, it is natural to use the proposed framework to deal with CMaOPs. Further, the proposed framework is conceptually simple and easy to instantiate for constrained many-objective optimization. A variety of balance schemes and ranking methods can be used to achieve the balance among convergence, diversity and feasibility. Three typical instantiations of the proposed framework are then designed. Experimental results on a constrained many-objective optimization test suite show that the proposed framework is highly competitive with existing state-of-the-art constrained many-objective evolutionary algorithms for CMaOPs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the distributed control problem of nonlinear strict-feedback multiagent systems is addressed under directed and time-invariant communication graphs. With the utilization of the prescribed performance control methodology, a control algorithm is proposed to ensure predefined bounds of overshoot, convergence rates, and steady-state values of the neighborhood synchronization errors in the presence of unknown dead-zone inputs. The algorithm is fully distributed in the sense that the control input for each agent is independent of any global information of the communication graph and is solely based on local relative output information from its neighborhood set. The approximating structures, e.g., neural networks or fuzzy systems, and the command filters that are typically incorporated to avoid the need for analytical derivatives in the backstepping design are not employed here, resulting in a low-complexity design. Simulation results are included to verify the algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The spiral optimization (SPO) algorithm proposed by Tamura and Yasuda is a relatively novel and simple search concept inspired by natural spiral phenomena. This algorithm searches continuous space using no gradient and only spiral trajectories composed of spiral vectors generated by deterministic spiral models. The primary purpose of this paper is to propose conditions and settings that mathematically ensure the convergence of the SPO algorithm to a stationary point. The conditions relating to the sizes and directions of the spiral vectors and the initial search points are based on direct search theory and recent SPO algorithm theories. The presented convergence was numerically verified using test functions with different properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the issue of data-driven adaptive sliding mode control for a family of discrete-time nonlinear processes with tracking error constraint. More specifically, a novel transformed error algorithm together with a new sliding mode control framework is investigated to ensure the tracking error converges to a predefined zone all the time. Moreover, the proposed controller can guarantee a convergence rate and steady-state behavior for the tracking error depending only on the input/output measurement data, which is more effective in the complex industrial processes. Simulations are given to validate the theoretical results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiobjective evolutionary algorithms (MOEAs) have proven their effectiveness and efficiency in solving problems with two or three objectives. However, recent studies show that MOEAs face many difficulties when tackling problems involving a larger number of objectives as their behavior becomes similar to a random walk in the search space since most individuals are nondominated with respect to each other. Motivated by the interesting results of decomposition-based approaches and preference-based ones, we propose in this paper a new decomposition-based dominance relation to deal with many-objective optimization problems and a new diversity factor based on the penalty-based boundary intersection method. Our reference point-based dominance (RP-dominance), has the ability to create a strict partial order on the set of nondominated solutions using a set of well-distributed reference points. The RP-dominance is subsequently used to substitute the Pareto dominance in nondominated sorting genetic algorithm-II (NSGA-II). The augmented MOEA, labeled as RP-dominance-based NSGA-II, has been statistically demonstrated to provide competitive and oftentimes better results when compared against four recently proposed decomposition-based MOEAs on commonly-used benchmark problems involving up to 20 objectives. In addition, the efficacy of the algorithm on a realistic water management problem is showcased. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many problems in the modern world have a decentralized and distributed nature. Irregular cellular learning automata (ICLA) is a powerful mathematical model for decentralized problems and applications. Convergence of ICLA to a compatible point is very important because this convergence can provide efficient solutions for the problems. The local rule of ICLA can play a key role in this convergence. A local rule that simply rewards or punishes learning automata just based on the response of environment and actions of neighbors does not guarantee convergence of ICLA to a compatible point. In this paper, we present a new local rule that guarantees convergence to a compatible point. Formal proofs for the convergence are provided and results of the conducted experiments support our theoretical findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most existing adaptive control designs for nonlinear pure-feedback systems have been derived based on backstepping or dynamic surface control (DSC) methods, requiring full system states to be measurable. The neural networks (NNs) or fuzzy logic systems (FLSs) used to accommodate uncertainties also impose demanding computational cost and sluggish convergence. To address these issues, this paper proposes a new output-feedback control for uncertain pure-feedback systems without using backstepping and function approximator. A coordinate transform is first used to represent the pure-feedback system in a canonical form to evade using the backstepping or DSC scheme. Then the Levant’s differentiator is used to reconstruct the unknown states of the derived canonical system. Finally, a new unknown system dynamics estimator with only one tuning parameter is developed to compensate for the lumped unknown dynamics in the feedback control. This leads to an alternative, simple approximation-free control method for pure-feedback systems, where only the system output needs to be measured. The stability of the closed-loop control system, including the unknown dynamics estimator and the feedback control is proved. Comparative simulations and experiments based on a PMSM test-rig are carried out to test and validate the effectiveness of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the increase in the number of optimization objectives, balancing the convergence and diversity in evolutionary multiobjective optimization becomes more intractable. So far, a variety of evolutionary algorithms have been proposed to solve many-objective optimization problems (MaOPs) with more than three objectives. Most of the existing algorithms, however, find difficulties in simultaneously counterpoising convergence and diversity during the whole evolutionary process. To address the issue, this paper proposes to solve MaOPs via multistage evolutionary search. To be specific, a two-stage evolutionary algorithm is developed, where the convergence and diversity are highlighted during different search stages to avoid the interferences between them. The first stage pushes multiple subpopulations with different weight vectors to converge to different areas of the Pareto front. After that, the nondominated solutions coming from each subpopulation are selected for generating a new population for the second stage. Moreover, a new environmental selection strategy is designed for the second stage to balance the convergence and diversity close to the Pareto front. This selection strategy evenly divides each objective dimension into a number of intervals, and then one solution having the best convergence in each interval will be retained. To assess the performance of the proposed algorithm, 48 benchmark functions with 7, 10, and 15 objectives are used to make comparisons with five representative many-objective optimization algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes two second-order continuous-time algorithms to solve the economic power dispatch problem in smart grids. The collective aim is to minimize a sum of generation cost function subject to the power demand and individual generator constraints. First, in the framework of nonsmooth analysis and algebraic graph theory, one distributed second-order algorithm is developed and guaranteed to find an optimal solution. As a result, the power demand constraints can be kept all the time under appropriate initial condition. The second algorithm is under a centralized framework, and the optimal solution is robust in the sense that different initial power conditions do not change the convergence of the optimal solution. Finally, simulation results based on five-unit system, IEEE 30-bus system, and IEEE 300-bus system show the effectiveness and performance of the proposed continuous-time algorithms. The examples also show that the convergence rate of second-order algorithm is faster than that of first-order distributed algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the problem of a quadrotor experiencing a total failure of one actuator. First, a nonlinear mathematical model for the faulty quadrotor is derived with three control inputs and six outputs, which includes the translational and rotational dynamics. Because of the limited inputs, the controllability of the yaw state is sacrificed, and the control inputs are reallocated to the other three healthy rotors. Second, a nonlinear controller is designed based on the proposed model. This presented controller includes two subcontrollers: 1) a roll angle, pitch angle, and altitude subcontroller and 2) a horizontal position subcontroller. In the controller design, the Moore–Penrose pseudoinverse of the coefficient matrix is applied to overcome the singularity of the roll angle. Third, the stability of both of the designed subcontrollers is verified by the Lyapunov stability theorem, and the convergence of the designed subcontrollers is analyzed. Finally, simulation results are provided to verify the effectiveness of the proposed model and the designed controller. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the identification problem of finite impulse response (FIR) systems with binary-valued observations under the assumption of fixed threshold and bounded persistently excitations. A recursive projection algorithm is constructed to estimate the unknown parameter. For first-order FIR systems, the convergence properties of the algorithm are analyzed theoretically. With mild conditions on the weight coefficients in the parameter update, the algorithm is proved to be convergent in mean square and the convergence rate can be the reciprocal of the number of observations, which has the same order as the optimal estimation when the system output is exactly known. Furthermore, it is also shown that the Cramér–Rao (CR) lower bound is achieved asymptotically with proper weight coefficients, which indicates that the algorithm is optimal in the sense of asymptotic efficiency. Some numerical examples are simulated to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm in both first-order and high-order FIR systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The hyperbolic cosine function with high-order errors can be utilized to improve the accuracy of adaptive filters. However, when initial weight errors are large, the hyperbolic cosine-based adaptive filter (HCAF) may be unstable. In this paper, a novel normalization based on the logarithmic hyperbolic cosine function is proposed to achieve the stabilization for the case of large initial weight errors, which generates a logarithmic HCAF (LHCAF). Actually, the cost function of LHCAF is the logarithmic hyperbolic cosine function that is robust to large errors and smooth to small errors. The transient and steady-state analyses of LHCAF in terms of the mean-square deviation (MSD) are performed for a stationary white input with an even probability density function in a stationary zero-mean white noise. The convergence and stability of LHCAF can be therefore guaranteed as long as the filtering parameters satisfy certain conditions. The theoretical results based on the MSD are supported by the simulations. In addition, a variable scaling factor and step-size LHCAF (VSS-LHCAF) is proposed to improve the filtering accuracy of LHCAF further. The proposed LHCAF and VSS-LHCAF are superior to HCAF and other robust adaptive filters in terms of filtering accuracy and stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers fixed-time consensus tracking of second-order multiagent systems (MASs) under directed interaction topology. A novel distributed observer is presented to estimate the leader’s states within a fixed time, which overcomes the difficulties caused by the asymmetry of the Laplacian matrix. A sliding surface is designed and a nonsingular terminal sliding mode consensus protocol is developed to achieve fixed-time convergence of the tracking error to the origin. It is shown that each follower can track the leader’s trajectory within a fixed time. Particularly, the gain of the presented consensus protocol is directly related to the prescribed time, which makes it convenient to determine and tune the gain according to the requirement of convergence time. Moreover, the presented control protocol reduces the conservativeness of the convergence time estimation for sliding motion. The simulation results validate the effectiveness of the proposed consensus scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the predefined-time consensus tracking problem of second-order multiagent systems (MASs) is investigated. A distributed observer is presented to estimate the tracking error for each follower within predefined time. A novel sliding surface is constructed to ensure predefined-time system convergence along the sliding surface and a terminal sliding mode consensus protocol is presented to overcome singularity problem and achieve leader-following consensus within predefined time. It is mathematically proved that the followers’ states can track the leader’s trajectory within predefined time. In particular, the settling time bound is directly related to tunable parameters, which facilitates the control protocol design to meet the desired convergence time requirement. Besides, the estimation bound for convergence time is less conservative than some existing fixed-time consensus protocols. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by the consensus tracking control for networked single-link robotic manipulators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a distributed compensation approach for the global optimization with separable objective functions and coupled constraints. By employing compensation variables, the global optimization problem can be solved without the information exchange of coupled constraints. The convergence analysis of the proposed algorithm is presented with the convergence condition through which a diminishing step-size with an upper bound can be determined. The convergence rate can be achieved at $O({lnT}/{\sqrt {T}})$. Moreover, the equilibrium of this algorithm is proved to converge at the optimal solution of the global optimization problem. The effectiveness and the practicability of the proposed algorithm is demonstrated by the parameter optimization problem in smart building. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Convergence rate is an important performance index in consensus control. Yet, most of the existing results can only achieve asymptotic consensus, or finite-time consensus whose settling time is contingent on initial conditions. This paper studies the robust fixed-time consensus tracking control problem for high-order nonholonomic chained-form systems subject to unknown parameters and nonlinear uncertainties. By using the modified power integrator method, we propose a new robust fixed-time consensus tracking algorithm, with which the consensus tracking can be achieved in a fixed time independent of initial conditions even in the presence of uncertainties. An observer-based fixed-time consensus tracking algorithm is also developed as an alternative method to overcome the communication loop problem. Lyapunov analysis shows the fixed-time stability of the closed-loop system. An application to multiple wheeled mobile robots is presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a finite-time control is proposed based on an extended state observer (ESO) for a pneumatic cylinder servo system. First, an ESO is designed to estimate the friction and varying loads using a super-twisting algorithm. Then, a finite-time controller is designed using a power integrator technology to ensure stability and improve control performances of the pneumatic cylinder servo system. Furthermore, both the effectiveness of the proposed ESO and the finite-time convergence of the closed-loop system are accordingly proven. Finally, experimental results demonstrate that both the control precision and the response rapidity are improved by applying the developed techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most studies so far on trajectory tracking control of autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) have assumed that the Euler angles are exactly known. However, the AUV inevitably suffers from external environmental disturbances which are driven by wind, density, and temperature gradients. The attitude transducers cannot derive accurate attitude information of the AUV. Additionally, the uncertain hydrodynamic parameters affect the stability of the system. Consequently, it is unknown whether tracking performance of the AUV can be guaranteed. In order to overcome these drawbacks, in this paper, a finite-time controller is developed by using the nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode control technique. A robust differentiator is proposed to estimate the external disturbances and uncertain parts. Simulations are performed to show that with the proposed control laws, the AUV converges to the desired trajectory even in the presence of external disturbances and system uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the distributed adaptive optimization problem for nonlinear multiagent systems with external disturbances. The main goal is to optimize a global objective function by utilizing local and neighboring information while rejecting the external disturbance signals. Different from the existing results, the weight-balanced directed graph is considered and, by introducing the adaptive technique, the local objective functions are allowed only to be differentiable with locally Lipschitz gradients. Moreover, without requiring the system nonlinear functions to be globally Lipschitz, the global asymptotic convergence is obtained if the global objective function is strongly convex. Finally, simulation results are provided to verify the validity of the proposed algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a unified framework to design sliding-mode control for stabilization of delayed memristive neural networks (DMNNs) with external disturbances. Under the presented framework, finite-time stabilization, and fixed-time stabilization of the controlled DMNNs can be, respectively, obtained by choosing different values for a specific control parameter. It is proved that the system responses can be made reaching the designed sliding-mode surface in finite and fixed time, and then stay on it. Moreover, it also illustrates that the inevitable external disturbances can be rejected by the designed sliding-mode control. Finally, the efficiency and superiority of the obtained main results are verified by comparisons with related works and numerical simulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Typically, iterative learning control (ILC) is applied based on a core hypothesis that the strict repetitiveness of control environment, task, and model should be satisfied by the controlled system. The problem of interest in this paper is: whether and how can ILC robustly work for controlled systems subject to iteration-dependent environments, tasks and models? To successfully solve this problem, an ILC algorithm using a high-order internal model (HOIM) is proposed and convergence conditions are developed. It is shown that HOIM-based ILC both possesses robustness against iteration-dependent uncertainties from initial states, disturbances, and plant models and tracks iteration-dependent references. Also, simulation tests validate the effectiveness of HOIM-based ILC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social spider optimization (SSO) is a swarm algorithm designed for solving complex optimization problems. It is an effective approach for searching a global optimum by simulating the cooperative behavior of social-spiders. However, SSO takes too much computation time and shows premature convergence on some problems. In order to accelerate the computation speed and further enhance the search ability, a parallel SSO (PSSO) algorithm with emotional learning is proposed in this paper. First, we develop a parallel structure for the female and male individuals to update their positions, and each individual can be computed in parallel during the search process. Second, an emotional learning mechanism is used to increase swarm diversity which is helpful to improve the search performance. Furthermore, the convergence property and computational complexity of PSSO are discussed in detail. To test the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm, it is applied to solve data clustering problem. The experimental results demonstrate that the overall performance of PSSO is superior to six other clustering algorithms on several standard data sets. In the aspect of search performance, the results obtained by PSSO are better than the comparison algorithms in most used data sets. In the aspect of time performance, the computation time of PSSO is greatly reduced in the parallel computing environment. It is comparable with ${K}$ -means which is the fastest among the comparison algorithms when the number of processors larger than and equals to 16. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The second-order sliding mode (SOSM) controller design problem for a class of sliding mode dynamics subject to an upper-triangular structure has been discussed in this paper. The proposed SOSM controller design involves two steps. First, a Lyapunov-based SOSM controller is developed by using the adding a power integrator technique to locally finite-time stabilize the sliding variables. Second, by combining the local SOSM controller with a saturation function, a novel SOSM controller with a saturation level is constructed. The feature of the new SOSM controller lies in that the saturation level can be tuned not only to guarantee the global convergence but also to improve the dynamic performance. Lyapunov analysis has been utilized to test the finite-time stability of the closed-loop sliding mode dynamics. The proposed method is eventually demonstrated by simulation results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an adaptive fixed-time convergent continuous controller designed to solve a stock management problem with the objective to drive stock and supply chain levels at the reference values, subject to loss rate disturbances whose bounds are unknown. The only measurable state of the supply chain is the inventory retailer stock level, whereas the supply line inventory level should be estimated. The designed controller includes a fixed-time convergent differentiator, an adaptive fixed-time convergent disturbance observer, and a fixed-time convergent regulator. The adaptive fixed-time convergent observer is used to estimate a disturbance without excessively increasing the controller gains. The controller design is validated in a case study of stock management. The calculated upper estimate for the total settling (convergence) time and the obtained simulation results confirm the fixed-time convergence and the robustness of the designed controller. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Computing time-varying linear systems is widely encountered in engineering practice and scientific computation. Dynamic neural networks, as a class of modeling approaches, have been intensively explored in recent decades for solving linear equations. The time-varying nature of this problem and the noisy workspace for many engineering practice require two features of practical design: 1) fast convergence in time and 2) robustness against noises and disturbance. Existing solutions usually decouple the problem into two steps by designing a fast-convergent neural controller and then topped with an additional low-pass filter to reach noise robustness. However, due to the interplay of the mentioned two dynamical parts, the overall system may lose stability if the parameters are not well tuned. In this paper, we establish the first dynamical neural model for simultaneously achieving fast-convergence, particularly finite-time convergence, and noise-robustness, with the capability to reject the unknown noise when it is constant or varies slowly. To do so, a superior design formula activated by noise-tolerant nonlinear functions is proposed to enhance the capability of zeroing neural networks (ZNNs), achieving denoising and finite-time convergence in a unified design. According to this design formula, a novel recurrent neural network (RNN) with finite-time convergence and inherently noise-suppression performance [thus termed the finite-time robust RNN (FTRRNN)] is developed and applied to robotic motion tracking illustrated via time-varying linear equation system solving. Furthermore, theoretical analyses on the global stability, the finite-time convergence and the denoising ability of the proposed design formula and the corresponding FTRRNN model are presented in details. The upper bound on the convergence time is also analytically derived. A numerical example is supplied to verify the superior property of the FTRRNN model to the ZNN model according to the results of computing time-varying linear equation system in the presence of additive noises. Finally, an application to robotic motion tracking is presented to show that the presented FTRRNN model can successfully realize the ellipse-path tracking control of a planar two-link manipulator in front of the external disturbances, while the conventional ZNN model fails under the same conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a quasi-optimal higher order sliding mode control (HOSMC) scheme is designed using disturbance observer (DOB) and adaptive techniques. The overall HOSMC scheme is constituted by three portions: 1) a switch-based quasi-optimal control law that ensures rapid finite-time stabilization of the origin, producing a nominally uncertainty-free system, based on a perturbed chain of integrators; 2) a DOB which estimates the lumped uncertainties with lower frequencies; and 3) an adaptive controller designed to deal with the fast-varying terms of these lumped uncertainties over the pass-band of the DOB. Since the adaptive controller and the DOB work in a cooperative manner, the only requirement is that the switching gain be greater than the bound of the DOB estimation error, instead of the bound of the lumped uncertainties. As a consequence, overestimation in the adaptive controller can be avoided by resorting to the equivalent control. Simulation results confirm the capabilities of the proposed control strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Periodic vehicle routing problem with time windows (PVRPTWs) is an important combinatorial optimization problem that can be applied in different fields. It is essentially a multiobjective optimization problem due to the problem nature. In this paper, a typical multiobjective PVRPTW with five objectives is first defined and new nonsymmetric real-world multiobjective PVRPTW instances are generated. Then, a hybrid multiobjective memetic algorithm is proposed for solving multiobjective PVRPTW. In the proposed algorithm, a two-phase strategy is devised to improve the comprehensive performance in terms of the convergence and diversity. In this strategy, several extreme solutions near an approximate Pareto front (PF) are identified at Phase I, and then the approximate PF is extended at Phase II. The proposed algorithm is extensively tested on both real-world instances and traditional instances. Experiment results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms two representative competitor algorithms on most of the instances. The effectiveness of the two-phase strategy is also confirmed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, an $H_{\infty }$ optimal tracking controller for completely unknown discrete-time nonlinear systems with control constraints is obtained by using an iterative adaptive learning algorithm. An augmented system is established by integrating the tracking error system and the reference trajectory. As an identifier of the unknown systems, a neural network (NN) is introduced with asymptotic stability of the estimation error. An action–disturbance–critic NN structure is proposed to implement the iterative dual heuristic programming algorithm with convergence guarantee of the costate function and the control policy. Simulation results and comparisons are provided to illustrate the superior performance of the designed optimal tracking controller. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a novel robust sliding mode control with adaptive reaching law (RSMC-ARL) is developed for a class of second-order nonlinear systems. First, a novel adaptive reaching law (ARL), utilizing a time-varying sliding surface, is designed to achieve fast convergence as well as maintain high accuracy for RSMC-ARL. Second, an adaptive tuning approach is developed to adjust the control law without frequency switching and avoid undesired chattering phenomenon. Then, the global robustness can be obtained against the uncertainties and external disturbances for nonlinear systems. Third, by constructing the Lyapunov function, the reachability and stability of RSMC-ARL can be guaranteed. Finally, three different second-order nonlinear systems are used to test the effectiveness of RSMC-ARL. The results have demonstrated that the proposed method can achieve fast convergence and high accuracy in comparison with some existing methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a novel integral reinforcement learning method is proposed based on value iteration (VI) to design the $H_{\infty }$ controller for continuous-time nonlinear systems subject to input constraints. To confront the control constraints, a nonquadratic function is introduced to reconstruct the ${L_{2}}$ -gain condition for the $H_{\infty }$ control problem. Then, the VI method is proposed to solve the corresponding Hamilton–Jacobi–Isaacs equation initialized with an arbitrary positive semi-definite value function. Compared with most existing works developed based on policy iteration, the initial admissible control policy is no longer required which results in a more free initial condition. The iterative process of the proposed VI method is analyzed and the convergence to the saddle point solution is proved in a general way. For the implementation of the proposed method, only one neural network is introduced to approximate the iterative value function, which results in a simpler architecture with less computational load compared with utilizing three neural networks. To verify the effectiveness of the VI-based method, two nonlinear cases are presented, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Matrix inversion ubiquitously arises in engineering. The so-called zeroing neural network (ZNN) is an effective recurrent neural network for solving time-variant matrix inversion. Without considering noises, the ZNN approach requires finite time or infinitely long time to converge to the exact solution. When perturbed by additive noises, the existing ZNN models exhibit limited ability to reject disturbances and are susceptible to be divergent. For instance, under time-variant bounded noises, steady-state residual errors of the existing ZNNs would be bounded. To make the steady-state residual errors arbitrarily small, infinitely long time is required and related design parameters must be set large enough or infinitely large, which is not realistic in practice. To overcome this situation, this paper for the first time systematically designs and analyses a finite-time convergent and noise-tolerant ZNN (FTNTZNN) that is capable of completely converging to the theoretical solution in finite time even under various types of noises. Theoretically, the finite-time convergence and disturbance-rejection properties of the FTNTZNN are rigorously proved. Comparative numerical results substantiate that the FTNTZNN model delivers superior convergence and robustness performance in solving time-variant matrix inversion and kinematic control of a robotic arm as compared with the existing ZNN models. The FTNTZNN model expands the current knowledge for designing neural-dynamic systems to solve matrix inversion, which can provide inspiration for other problems solving under noises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a novel fixed-time sliding mode disturbance observer (SMDO)-based robust backstepping cruise tracking control scheme with closed-loop finite-time convergence for flexible air-breathing hypersonic vehicles (FAHVs). In order to enhance the control system’s robustness, a fixed-time SMDO is designed to compensate for the flexibility effects, model uncertainties, and external disturbances in FAHVs. In consequence, fixed convergence time of disturbance observation is achieved independently of initial estimation errors. Furthermore, velocity and altitude continuous finite-time tracking controllers are constructed by incorporating the SMDO and nonsmooth backstepping technique. To solve the problem of “explosion of complexity” in the conventional backstepping approach, nonsmooth filters are specifically constructed to generate the derivatives of virtual control laws. A Lyapunov-based stability analysis is conducted to show the finite-time convergence of the closed-loop FAHV control system. Finally, several representative numerical simulations are given to illustrate the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed control strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional multi-agent ${Q}$ -learning (MAQL) induced planning needs to evaluate computationally expensive Nash/correlated equilibrium (CE) at a given joint state during both learning and planning phases. This paper introduces a novel approach to adapt composite rewards of all the agents in one ${Q}$ -table in joint state-action space during learning, and uses these rewards to compute CE in an efficient way during the planning phases. Two schemes of MAQL have been proposed. If mutual cooperation among the agents leads to success of at least one agent and is enough to make the team successful, then scheme-I is employed. However, if an agent’s success is contingent upon other agents’ mutual cooperation as well as simultaneous success of the agents is mandatory then scheme-II is employed. New algorithms for multi-agent learning/planning have been proposed, centering on the said schemes. It is shown that the equilibrium obtained by the proposed algorithms and the traditional correlated ${Q}$ -learning are identical. In order to restrict the exploration within the feasible joint states, constraint versions of the said algorithms are also proposed. An analysis is included to demonstrate the significant saving of computational time and space by the proposed algorithms. In addition, convergence analysis of the proposed algorithms is done. Experiments have been undertaken to validate the performance of the proposed algorithms in multi-robot planning on both simulated and real platforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under consensus-based economic dispatch (ED) algorithm, multiple agents, which control local generation units, cooperatively minimize the total generation cost subject to the balance of the generation and expected demand in smart grids. As ubiquitous time delays on communication links exist in communication networks, studying the effect of delays on the dispatch performance is of both theoretical merit and practical value for the efficient and stable operation of smart grids. In this paper, we consider a well-developed consensus-based ED protocol under constant time delays. We find that there always exists a sufficiently small learning gain parameter under finite constant delays such that the convergence of the consensus-based algorithm is guaranteed. Further, an analytical expression of the upper bound is established for the learning gain parameter, which is determined by the largest delay, the weight matrix and the parameters of generation cost functions. In order to guarantee the optimality of the final solution, we propose the updating rule for iterations when initial states are not received by their neighbors due to time delays. The optimality of the final solution under the proposed updating rule is analyzed. We validate our theoretical results through extensive simulation studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present a direct multirate adaptive control algorithm that ensures global stabilization of a class of (potentially unstable and invertible) linear time-invariant discrete-time plants of known order and relative degree one. An essential feature of our scheme is that no projections are needed, no appeal is made to the persistence of excitation arguments for the stability proof and it has a better transient performance than existing schemes. The implementation of the controller requires some prior information about its Markov parameters, namely, upper and lower bounds on the systems impulse response. It is directly applicable to plants with interlacing real poles and zeros, i.e., with Cauchy index equal to the plant order, provided the adaptation gain is restricted to be smaller than some value determined by the measure of relative primeness of the pole and zero polynomial. This class contains some practically interesting systems, for instance, resistor–inductor or resistance–capacitance circuits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How to learn dimension-reduced representations of image data for clustering has been attracting much attention. Motivated by that the clustering accuracy is affected by both the prior-known label information of some of the images and the sparsity feature of the representations, we propose a non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) method with dual constraints in this paper. In our model, one constraint is used to keep the label feature and the other constraint is utilized to enhance the sparsity of the representations. Notably that these two constraints are embedded naturally into the traditional NMF model, refraining from the usage of the balance parameters which are hard to choose. Meantime, for solving the proposed model, the alternative iteration scheme is employed, and an efficient algorithm based on convex optimization is designed to conduct each iteration operation. It is proved that this algorithm achieves a nonlinear convergence rate, much faster than existing methods with linear rate. Simulation results demonstrate the advantages of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies a class of distributed convex optimization problems by a set of agents in which each agent only has access to its own local convex objective function and the estimate of each agent is restricted to both coupling linear constraint and individual box constraints. Our focus is to devise a distributed primal-dual gradient algorithm for working out the problem over a sequence of time-varying general directed graphs. The communications among agents are assumed to be uniformly strongly connected. A column-stochastic mixing matrix and a fixed step-size are applied in the algorithm which exactly steers all the agents to asymptotically converge to a global optimal solution. Based on the standard strong convexity and the smoothness assumptions of the objective functions, we show that the distributed algorithm is capable of driving the whole network to geometrically converge to an optimal solution of the convex optimization problem only if the step-size does not exceed some upper bound. We also give an explicit analysis for the convergence rate of the proposed optimization algorithm. Simulations on economic dispatch problems and demand response problems in power systems are performed to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed optimization algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]