This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been
fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON FUZZY SYSTEMS, VOL. *, NO. *, MONTH 2010
Fuzzy Approximation-Based Adaptive Control of
Strict-Feedback Nonlinear Systems with Time
Delays
Bing Chen, Xiaoping Liu, Kefu Liu and Chong Lin
Abstract—This paper focuses on the problem of adaptive
control for a class of nonlinear time-delay systems with unknown
nonlinearities and strict-feedback structure. Based on Lyapunov-
Krasovskii functional approach, a state feedback adaptive con-
troller is constructed by backstepping. The proposed adaptive
controller guarantees that the system output converges into a
small neighborhood of the reference signal and all the signals
of the closed-loop system remain bounded. Compared with the
existing results, the main advantage of the proposed method
is that the controller design is independent of the choice of
the fuzzy membership functions, thus the priori knowledge of
fuzzy approximators is not necessary for control design; and the
proposed approach requires only one adaptive law for a n-th
order system. Two numerical examples are used to illustrate the
effectiveness of the proposed approach.
Index Terms—Nonlinear Systems, Adaptive Control, Backstep-
ping, Fuzzy Logic Systems, Time delays.
I. I NTRODUCTION
In recent years, approximation-based adaptive control for
nonlinear systems with triangular structure has been exten-
sively investigated and some significant results have been
reported in the literature, for instance, see [5], [6], [21] and
[26], for adaptive neural control, [1], [9], [10], [15], [16],
[17], [19], [20], [22], [27], [28], [31], and for adaptive fuzz
control, and the references therein. The main idea of such
a control methodology is that fuzzy logic systems or neural
networks are utilized to approximate unknown nonlinearities
in system dynamics and adaptive controllers are constructed
by adaptive technique combining with backstepping. However,
these results mentioned above are obtained for nonlinear
delay-free systems. In practice, time-delays often occur in
many dynamic systems. It has been shown that delays may
cause instability and degrade system performance. Thus, con-
trol of time-delay systems has been one of active research
topics recently, for instance, see [7], [14], [29], [30] and
[32]. Particularly, aforementioned approximation-based adap-
tive control methods have been also developed to nonlinear
strict-feedback systems with time-delays. The authors in [2]
addressed the problem of adaptive neural network tracking
control for nonlinear time-delay systems. By appropriate
Lyapunov-Krasovskii functionals the unknown delay terms
were compensated for, furthermore, an adaptive neural con-
troller was constructed. This result was further developed to
B. Chen and C. Lin are with Institute of Complexity Science, Qingdao Uni-
versity, Qingdao, Shandong, P. R. China e-mail: chenbing1958@yahoo.com.cn
X. P. Liu and K. F. Liu are with Faculty of Engineering of Lakehead
University, Thunder Bay, On, Canada.
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1
multi-input and multi-output nonlinear strict-feedback systems
with time-delays in [3] and [4]. The robust stabilization was
discussed in [8], in which based on a wavelet neural network
online approximation model and an integral-type Lyapunov-
Krasovskii functional, a state feedback adaptive controller
was proposed for nonlinear strict-feedback delayed systems.
In [11], output feedback tracking control was addressed and
an observer-based adaptive neural controller was proposed.
Alternatively, in [24] and [25] by using fuzzy logic systems to
approximate the unknown nonlinear functions, adaptive fuzzy
control was addressed for perturbed and delayed nonlinear
strict-feedback systems.
Although great progress has been made, some challeng-
ing problems still remain in approximation-based adaptive
control of nonlinear systems. Both of the existing adaptive
neural approaches and adaptive fuzzy methods require many
parameters to be tuned on-line. Even if the control strategies
proposed in [24], [25] and [28] are adopted, there are at
least n adaptive parameters needed to be adjusted on-line for
an n-the order system. When more neural network nodes or
fuzzy rule bases are required for more accurate approximation
to the unknown nonlinearities, there will be many adaptive
parameters needed to be estimated on-line. This will lead
to learning time unacceptably large. In addition, the existing
approximation-based adaptive control approaches require the
basis function vectors of the approximators to construct the
adaptive control laws. This means that the center of the
receptive field and the width of the Gaussian functions in the
corresponding approximators have to be defined in advance.
However, when a neural networks or fuzzy logic system is
used to approximate an unknown nonlinear function, it is
difficult to choose the appropriate centers and width of the
Gaussian functions in the corresponding approximators. Al-
though this problem can be solved by utilizing the nonlinearly
parameterized fuzzy logic systems or neural networks as the
approximators, such a method will require a lot of adaptive
parameters to estimate those ideal center vectors and width
constants of basis functions.
The above observation motivates the present research. In
this paper we will present a new adaptive control approach
for nonlinear time-delay systems with the lower triangular
form. Fuzzy logic systems are employed to handle the un-
known nonlinear functions generated in each design step only.
They are not required to implement the proposed controller.
Therefore, the priori knowledge on the fuzzy logic systems
is no longer necessary for controller design. To reduce the
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON FUZZY SYSTEMS, VOL. *, NO. *, MONTH 2010 2

number of the adaptive parameters, a novel design method Remark 3. As shown by Lemma 3, the increasing property
is developed. The proposed control scheme guarantees a good of φi (s) results in variable separation, which is useful for con-
tracking performance and the boundedness of all the signals in troller design. Note that Assumption 3 includes the following
the closed-loop system. Compared with the existing adaptive assumption as a special case
fuzzy control or neural control methods, the proposed adaptive
i
X
control approach requires only one adaptive law to control an
|qi (x̄i )| ≤ |xj |φij (|xj |)
n-the order nonlinear time-delay system with strict-feedback
j=1
structure, and is also independent of the priori knowledge on
the fuzzy approximators. The theoretic results are illustrated with φij being positive continuous functions, which is required
through the simulation examples. in [8], [12] and [13].
In the next section, a backstepping-based design procedure
II. P ROBLEM F ORMULATION A ND P RELIMINARIES will be developed. At Step i, a virtual control signal αi (Zi )
is proposed and the real control law u is constructed at the
Consider the following nonlinear time-delay system. last step. Both of the virtual control signal and the real control
law are constructed in the form: for 1 ≤ i ≤ n,
ẋi (t) = fi (x̄i ) + gi (x̄i )xi+1 (t) + qi (x̄i (t − τi )),
ẋn (t) = fn (x̄n ) + gn (x̄n )u(t) + qn (x̄n (t − τn )), −1
αi (Zi ) = zi (t)θ(t) − (λi + 0.5)zi (t), (2)
2a2i
y(t) = x1 (t), 1 ≤ i ≤ n − 1, (1)
where ai and λi are positive design parameters, and αn = u.
where xi ∈ R is the state variable of the i-th subsystem, u ∈ R zi , 1 ≤ i ≤ n, satisfy the following variable transformation.
and y ∈ R are the control input and output of the system
(1). τi is the time-delay in the i-th subsystem and satisfies zi (t) = xi (t) − αi−1 (Zi ) (3)
τi ≤ τ, a positive constant. x̄i (t) = [x1 (t), x2 (t), ..., xi (t)]T
and x(t) = x̄n (t) = [x1 (t), x2 (t), ..., xn (t)]T . fi (.), gi (.) with Zi = [x̄Ti , θ, ȳdT ]T , α0 = yd and ȳd = [yd , ẏd ]T .
and qi (.) are unknown smooth nonlinear functions satisfying θ(t) is the estimation of θ∗ , an unknown constant, which
fi (0) = qi (0) = 0. will be specified at the last step and satisfies the following
In this research, the control objective is to design a con- differential equation.
troller such that the system output follows the desired tra- n
X r 2
jectory yd (t) while all the signals in the closed-loop system θ̇(t) =
2a2 zi (t) − σθ(t) (4)
remain bounded. To this end, the following assumptions are i=1 i
imposed on the system (1).
Assumption 1. The desired trajectory yd and its derivative with r and σ being positive design parameters.
are continuous and there exists a positive constant d such that Remark 4. It is obvious that (4) implies that for any
|yd | ≤ d. nonnegative initial condition θ(t0 ) ≥ 0, θ(t) ≥ 0 holds
Assumption 2. The signs of gi (.), for 1 ≤ i ≤ n, are known for t ≥ t0 . Thus throughout this paper, it is assumed that
and there exists a positive constant g0 such that θ(t0 ) ≥ 0.
To develop a simple backstepping-based design procedure,
0 < g0 ≤ |gi (.)| < ∞. some useful lemmas are introduced.
Lemma 1 [23]: Let f (x) be a continuous function defined
Apparently, Assumption 2 means that functions gi (.), for 1 ≤ on a compact set Ω. Then for any given desired level of
i ≤ n, are either strictly positive or strictly negative. Without accuracy ε > 0, there exists a fuzzy logic system W T S(x)
loss of generality, it is further assumed that gi (.) > g0 > 0. such that
Remark 1. As stated in [8], this assumption is reasonable ¯ ¯
sup ¯f (x) − W T S(x)¯ ≤ ε,
because gi (.) has to be away from zero to satisfy the control- x∈Ω
lable condition of system (1). It should be pointed out that the
lower bound g0 is required for analysis purposes, its value is where W = [w1 , w2 , ..., wN ]T is the PN ideal constant weight
not required for controller design. In addition, Assumption 2 vector, S(x) = [s1 (x), ..., sN (x)]T / j=1 sj (x) is the basis
is different from the corresponding assumptions in [8] and [4] function vector, N > 1 is the number of the fuzzy rules and
where a known upper bounding function ḡi (.) is required. So, si (x) are chosen as Gaussian functions, that is,
Assumption 2 is more relaxed than that in [4] and [8]. · ¸
−(x − µi )T (x − µi )
Assumption 3. There exist smooth monotonously increas- si (x) = exp , i = 1, 2, ..., N
ing functions φi (.) with φ(0) = 0 such that ηi2

|qi (x̄i )| ≤ φi (kx̄i k) , 1 ≤ i ≤ n. with µi = [µi1 , µi2 , ..., µin ]T being the center vector and ηi
the width of the Gaussian function.
Remark 2. Since φi (s) is a strictly increasing smooth Lemma 2 [18]. For any u ∈ R and ε > 0, the following
function and φi (0) = 0, there exists a smooth function hi (s) holds.
such that φi (s) = shi (s). This equality will be employed in ³u´
each design step. 0 ≤ |u| − u tanh ≤ δε, δ = 0.2785.
ε

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Lemma 3. Under the variable transformation (3) and As- Applying Lemma 3 to the term z1 q1 (x̄1 (τ1 )) produces
sumption 3, function qi (x̄i ) satisfies the following inequality
1 2 1 2
for i = 1, 2, ..., n. z1 q1 (x̄1 (τ1 )) ≤ z + φ (|z1 (τ1 )|ϕ1 (θ(τ1 )))
2 1 2 1
i
X +|z1 |φ1 (d) . (7)
|qi (x̄i )| ≤ φi ((i + 1)|zj |ϕj (θ)) + φi ((i + 1)d) (5)
j=1 Let
n X
X k
with ϕj = (λj + 1.5) + 2a12 θ ,for j = 1, 2, ...,i − 1, and 1
j f¯1 (Z1 ) = f1 − ẏd + z1 φ̄2i (|z1 |ϕ1 (θ))
ϕi = 1. 2
i=1 i=1
Proof. Let x̄i = [x1 , ..., xi ]T , z̄i = [z1 , ..., zi ]T and ᾱi = µ ¶
1 z1 φ1 (d)
[yd , α1 , ..., αi−1 ]T . Then, we have + z1 + φ1 (d) tanh . (8)
2 ²1
i
X i−1
X
kx̄i k ≤ kz̄i k + kᾱi k ≤ |zj | + |αj | + |yd | Obviously, f¯1 is a function of Z1 defined by (3). Substitut-
j=1 j=1 ing (7)-(8) into (6) and using Lemma 2 give the following
i i−1
" # inequality.
X X 1
≤ |zj | + |zj | (λj + 0.5) + 2 θ + d n Xk
2aj ¡ ¢ X 1 2
j=1 j=1
V̇1 ≤ z1 f¯1 + g1 x2 − φi (|z1 |ϕ1 (θ)) + δ²1 . (9)
i
X i=1
2
k=2
= |zj | ϕj (θ) + d.
j=1
Pn Pk z12 2
In (9), the equality
Pn Pk 1 2 k=2 i=1 2 φ̄i (|z1 |ϕ1 (θ)) =
Furthermore, it follows from Assumption 3 and the φ (|z 1 |ϕ 1 (θ)) is used. Since f¯1 is unknown,
k=2 i=1 2 i
monotonously increasing property of φi (.) that according to Lemma 1 a fuzzy logic system W1T S(Z1 ) is
  used to approximate f¯1 such that for any given ε1 > 0,
i
X
|qi (x̄i )| ≤ φi (kx̄i k) ≤ φi  |zj | ϕj (θ) + d f¯1 = W1T S(Z1 ) + δ1 (Z1 ),
2
kδ1 k ≤ ε21
j=1
i with δ1 (Z1 ) indicating the approximation error. Consequently,
X
≤ φi ((i + 1)|zj |ϕj (θ)) + φi ((i + 1)d) .
z1 f¯1
−1
= z1 W1T S(Z1 ) kW1 k kW1 k + z1 δ1 (Z1 )
j=1
1 2 2 1
≤ z kW1 k S T (Z1 )S (Z1 ) + g1 z12
2a21 1 2
III. A DAPTIVE C ONTROL D ESIGN
1 1
In this section, a backstepping design procedure will be + a21 + ε21 g1−1
2 2
developed. For the purpose of simplicity, in the following 2
kW1 k 2 1 1 1
φi (|zj |ϕj (θ)) denotes φi ((i + 1)|zj |ϕj (θ)) , the time variable ≤ z + g1 z12 + a21 + ε21 g1−1 , (10)
2a21 1 2 2 2
t is omitted from the corresponding functions and x(τ ) stands
for x(t − τ ). where a1 > 0 is a constant and the inequality
Step 1. Define tracking error as z1 = x1 − yd . Thus, S T (Z1 )S (Z1 ) ≤ 1 is used.
the following error dynamics can be obtained from the first Due to θ(t) ≥ 0, for α1 = −(λ1 + 0.5)z1 − 2a12 z1 θ one has
1
differential equation of the system (1).
z1 g1 x2 = z1 g1 α1 + z1 g1 z2
ż1 = f1 (x̄1 ) + g1 (x̄1 )x2 − ẏd + q1 (x̄1 (τ1 )). 1 1
≤ − 2 z12 g0 θ − (λ1 + )g1 z12 + z1 g1 z2 . (11)
2a1 2
To deal with the delayed terms, consider Lyapunov-Krasovskii
functional candidate as follows. Substituting (10) and (11) into (9) yields
Z t
1 1 2 1¡ 2 ¢
V1 = z12 + φ1 (|z1 (s)|ϕ1 (θ(s)))ds V̇1 ≤ −g1 k1 z12 + a1 + ε21 g1−1 + δ²1 + z1 g1 z2
2 t−τ1 2 2
1 2³ 2
´
Differentiating V1 yields + 2 z1 kW1 k − g0 θ
2a1
µ ¶ n X k
1 2 X 1 2
V̇1 = z1 f1 (x̄1 ) + g1 (x̄1 )x2 − ẏd + z1 φ̄1 (|z1 |ϕ1 (θ)) − φ (|z1 |ϕ1 (θ)) . (12)
2 2 i
i=1
k=2
1 2
+z1 q1 (x̄1 (τ1 )) − φ1 (|z1 (τ1 )|ϕ1 (θ(τ1 ))) . (6)
2 Step k. (2 ≤ k ≤ n − 1) It is assumed that we have found
In (6), the equality φ21
(|z1 |ϕ1 (θ)) = z12 φ̄1 (|z1 |ϕ1 (θ))
is used, αi , i = 1, 2, ..., k − 1, such that the Lyapunov function
which can be derived from Remark 1. As a result, (6) can be
1 2
k−1 XZ t 1
X k−1
obtained by taking φ̄1 (|z1 |ϕ1 (θ)) = ϕ21 (θ)h21 (|z1 |ϕ1 (θ)). Such Vk−1 = Vk−2 + zk−1 + φ2i (|zj (s)|ϕj (θ(s)))ds.
an idea will also be used in the rest of the design procedures. 2 j=1 i=j t−τi
2

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satisfies the following inequality. Substituting (13) and (15)-(17) into (14) gives
k−1 n X
s k−1
XX n X
s
XX 1 2 1 2
V̇k−1 ≤ Φk−1 − φ (|zj |ϕj (θ)) V̇k ≤ Φk−1 − φ (|zj |ϕj (θ))
2 i j=1 s=k i=j
2 i
j=1 s=k i=j
k−2 n k−2
X X r n
X ∂αi X r 2 ∂αi
− zi+1 z + zk−1 gk−1 zk (13) − zi+1 z 2 + zk−1 gk−1 zk
∂θ 2a2j j i=1
∂θ 2a2j j
i=1 j=k j=k
à k−1
Pk−1 Pk−1 1 ¡ 2 ¢ X
∂αk−1
2 −1
where Φk−1 = − i=1 ³gi λi zi2 + i=1 ´ 2 ai + εi gi + +zk fk + gk xk+1 − (fi + gi xi+1 )
Pk−1 Pk−1 r 2 2 i=1
∂xi
i=1 δ² i + z
i=1 2a2i i kW i k − g0 θ . Then, consider a à n ! !
Lyapunov function candidate as ∂αk−1 X r 2 ∂αk−1
− z − σθ − ẏd
∂θ 2a2i i ∂yd
Xk X k Z t i=1
1 1 2 µ ¶2
Vk = Vk−1 + zk2 + φi (|zj (s)|ϕj (θ(s)))ds. Xk
i ∂αk−1
2 j=1 i=j t−τi
2 +zk2
i=1
2 ∂xi
Thus, the derivative of Vk is given by Xk Xk X k
∂αk−1 1 2
+|zk | | |φi (d) + φ (|zj (τi )|ϕj (θ(τi )))
V̇k = V̇k−1 + zk (fk − α̇k−1 + gk xk+1 ) i=1
∂xi j=1 i=j
2 i
Xk X k k X
k k X
k
1 2 X 1 X 1
+zk qk (x̄k (τk )) + φ (|zj |ϕj (θ)) + φ2i (|zj |ϕj (θ)) − φ2i (|zj (τi )|ϕj (θ(τi )))
j=1 i=j
2 i 2 2
j=1 i=j j=1 i=j
k X
X k k−1 n s
1 X X X 1 2
− φ2i (|zj (τi )|ϕj (θ(τi ))), (14) = Φk−1 − φ (|zj |ϕj (θ))
j=1 i=j
2 2 i
j=1 s=k+1i=j
k−1
X n
X
where ∂αi r 2
− zi+1 z
k−1
X i=1
∂θ 2a2j j
∂αk−1 Ã
j=k+1
α̇k−1 = [fi + gi xi+1 + qi (x̄i (τi ))] k−2
X
i=1
∂xi ∂αi r
+zk zk−1 gk−1 − zi+1 2 zk + fk
∂αk−1 ∂αk−1 i=1
∂θ 2ak
+ θ̇ + ẏd . (15)
∂θ ∂yd k−1
X
∂αk−1
−∂αk−1
− + gk xk+1 (fi + gi xi+1 )
By using the notation = 1, zk qk (τk ) − i=1
∂xi
Pk−1 ∂xk
P k à k !
zk i=1 ∂α∂xk−1
i
qi (τi ) = −∂αk−1
zk i=1 ∂xi qi (τi ). Applying ∂αk−1 X r 2 ∂αk−1
Lemma 3 to this term results in the following inequality − 2 zi − σθ − ∂y ẏd
∂θ i=1
2a i d
k k µ ¶2 µ ¶2 !
X −∂αk−1 X i ∂αk−1 Xk
zk qi (τi ) ≤ zk2 i ∂αk−1 zk 2
∂xi 2 ∂xi +zk + φ̄k (|zk |ϕk (θ)
i=1 i=1 i=1
2 ∂xi 2
Xk Xi k
1 2 X ∂αk−1
+ φ (|zj (τi )|ϕj (θ(τi ))) +|zk | | |φi (d) , (18)
i=1 j=1
2 i ∂xi
i=1
X k
∂αk−1 where φ2k (|zk |ϕk (θ) = zk2 φ̄2k (|zk |ϕk (θ)) is used.
+|zk | | |φi (d)
i=1
∂xi As shown here, at design Step k, some terms with respect
Xk µ ¶2 Xk to the state variable zi , for i ≤ k, are generated by α̇k−1 .
i ∂αk−1 ∂αk−1
= zk2 + |zk | | |φi (d) Thus, the design difficulty at each design step is mainly from
i=1
2 ∂xi i=1
∂xi these terms generated in the posterior design steps. In order
k X
X k to compensate these terms, define an unknown function f¯k as
1
+ φ2i (|zj (τi )|ϕj (θ(τi ))) . (16) follows.
j=1 i=j
2
k−2
X ∂αi r
f¯k (Zk ) = zk−1 gk−1 − zi+1 2 zk
In addition, due to (4) one has ∂θ 2ak
i=1
à k ! k−1
∂αk−1 ∂αk−1 X r X
∂αk−1
2 +fk − (fi + gi xi+1 )
θ̇ = 2 zi − σθ
∂θ ∂θ 2ai i=1
∂xi
i=1
n
à k !
∂αk−1 X r 2 ∂αk−1 X r 2
+ z . (17) − z − σθ
∂θ 2a2i i ∂θ 2a2i i
i=k+1 i=1

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Xi k µ ¶2
∂αk−1 ∂αk−1 where
− ẏd + zk
∂yd 2 ∂xi n−1
i=1
µ ¶ X ∂αk−1
zk 2 zk Uk α̇n−1 = [fi + gi xi+1 + qi (x̄i (τi ))]
+ φ̄k (|zk |ϕk (θ)) + Uk tanh i=1
∂xi
2 ²k
n s ∂αk−1 ∂αk−1
X X zk 2 + θ̇ + ẏd . (24)
+ φ̄ (|zk |ϕk (θ)) ∂θ ∂yd
i=1
2 i
s=k+1
Pk Let −∂α n−1
∂xn = 1. Similar to (16), the following inequality is
with Uk = ∂αk−1
i=1 | ∂xi |φi (d) . By using f¯k and Lemma 2, true.
(18) can be rewritten as
Xn Xn µ ¶2
−∂αn−1 2 i ∂αn−1
k−1
X n
X Xs zn qi (τi ) ≤ zn
1 2 ∂xi 2 ∂xi
V̇k ≤ Φk−1 − φ (|zj |ϕj (θ)) i=1 i=1
2 i n X
X n
j=1 s=k+1
i=j 1
k−1 n + φ2i (|zj (τi )|ϕj (θ(τi )))
∂αi X X r 2 2
− zi+1 j=1 i=j
∂θ 2a 2 zj n
i=1 j=k+1 j X ∂αn−1
¡ ¢ +|zn | | |φi (d) . (25)
¯
+zk fk + gk xk+1 + ²k δ (19) ∂xi
i=1
Ps zk2 2
where
Ps 1 2the equality i=1 2 φ̄i (|zk |ϕk (θ)) = Substituting (24)-(25) and (22) with k = n − 1 into (23), a
i=1 2 φi (|zk |ϕk (θ)) is used. straightforward calculation shows that
Note that f¯k is an unknown function of Zk . Thus, fuzzy
n−2
X
logic system WkT S(Zk ) is utilized to approximate the un- ∂αi r 1
V̇n ≤ Φn−1 − zi+1 2 zn2 + φ2n (|zn |ϕn )
known f¯k such that for any given constant εk > 0, ∂θ 2an 2
i=1
f¯k (Zk ) = WkT S(Zk ) + δk (Zk ),
2
kδk k ≤ ε2k , X i ∂αn−1 ¶2
n µ
+gn−1 zn−1 zn + zn2
2 ∂xi
where δk (Zk ) is the approximation error. Subsequently, fol- i=1
Xn
lowing the similar line used in the proof of the procedure ∂αn−1
from (10) to (11) yields the following inequalities: +|zn | | |φi (d)
i=1
∂xi
2 Ã n−1
kWk k 2 1 2 1¡ 2 ¢ X ∂αk−1
zk f¯k ≤ 2 zk + zk gk + ak + ε2k gk−1 (20)
, +zn − (fi + gi xi+1 )
2ak 2 2 ∂xi
i=1
−g0 θ 2 1 ¶
zk gk xk+1 ≤ z − (λk + )gk zk2 + zk gk zk+1 .(21) ∂αn−1 ∂αn−1
2a2k k 2 +fn + gn u + θ̇ + ẏd . (26)
∂θ ∂yd
Furthermore, it follows immediately from substituting (20) and
(21) into (19) that Since all the state variables can be used to construct the real
control law at this step, define
k−1
X n
X
∂αi r 2 zn 2
V̇k ≤ Φk − zi+1 z + zk gk zk+1 f¯n = fn + gn−1 zn−1 + φ̄ (|zn |ϕn )
i=1
∂θ 2a2j j 2 n
j=k+1
n−1
X ∂αk−1
Xk n
X Xs
1 2 ∂αk−1
− φ (|zj |ϕj (θ)), (22) − [fi + gi xi+1 ] − θ̇
2 i i=1
∂x i ∂θ
j=1 i=j
s=k+1 µ ¶2 µ ¶
X n
Pk Pk 1 ¡ 2 ¢ i ∂αn−1 zn Un
where Φk = − i=1³gi λi zi2 + 2 −1 +zn + Un tanh
´
i=1 2 ai + εi gi + 2 ∂xi ²n
Pk Pk 1 2 2 i=1
i=1 δ²i + i=1 2a2i zi kWi k − g0 θ n−2
∂αk−1 X ∂αi r
Step n. Consider the Lyapunov function candidate. − ẏd − zi+1 2 zn (27)
n n Z
∂yd ∂θ 2an
1 2 XX t 1 2
i=1
Vn = Vn−1 + zn + φ (|zj (s)|ϕj (θ(s)))ds. Pn ∂αn−1
2 j=1 i=j t−τi
2 i with Un = ¯
i=1 | ∂xi |φi (d) . Then, fn is an un-
known function of Zn = [x1 , ..., xn , θ, yd , ẏd ]T . Noting
Differentiating Vn gives 1 2
2
zn 2
2 φn (|zn |ϕn ) = 2 φ̄n (|zn |ϕn ) and using Lemma 2, we have
V̇n = V̇n−1 + zn (fn − α̇n−1 + gn u)
Xn X n V̇n ≤ Φn−1 + ²n δ + zn (f¯n + gn u). (28)
1 2
+zn qn (x(τn )) + φi (|zj |ϕj )
j=1 i=j
2 Again, the fuzzy logic system WnT S(Zn ) is used to model the
n X
X n
1 2 unknown function f¯n such that for any given constant εn > 0,
− φ (|zj (τi )|ϕj θ(τi )) (23)
j=1 i=j
2 i f¯n = WnT S(Zn ) + δn (Zn ),
2
kδn k ≤ ε2n ,

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where δn indicates the approximation error. Then, similar to Substituting this inequality into (32) yields
(20) and (21) the following inequalities can be obtained.
n ³
σg0 2 ´ X
X n

1 2° ° 1 1¡ 2 ¢ V̇ ≤ − gi λi zi2 +
θ̃ + δ²i
zn f¯n ≤ 2
zn °Wn2 ° + zn2 gn + an + ε2n gn−1 , i=1
2r i=1
2an 2 2
1³ 2 σg0 ∗2 ´
Xn
−1 2 1 + ai + ε2i gi−1 + θ
zn gn u ≤ z g0 θ − (λn + )gn zn2 . (29) 2 2r
2a2n n 2 i=1
Xn ³ ´
Apparently, combining (28) and (29) shows that ≤ −a0 zi2 + θ̃2 + d0 . (33)
n n n i=1
X X 1¡ ¢ X
V̇n ≤ − gi λi zi2 + a2i + ε2i gi−1 + ²i δ Define a set as
i−1 i=1
2 i=1
à n ! ( à n ! )
X 1 X
+ 2 2
z (kWi k − g0 θ) . (30) Ω= (z, θ̃) : a0 zi2 + θ̃ 2
≤ d0 . (34)
i=1
2a2i i i=1

2
Now, define θ∗ = max{kWi k /g0 : 1 ≤ i ≤ n} and θ̃ = It ³is obvious that
Pn ´ when (z, θ̃) is outside of Ω, i.e.,
2 2
θ∗ − θ. Thus, (30) can be rewritten as a0 i=1 zi + θ̃ > d0 , then V̇ < 0 holds. As a result, any
n n
trajectory of the closed-loop starting in Ω will always stay
X X 1¡ ¢
V̇n ≤ − gi λi zi2 + a2i + ε2i gi−1 inside this compact set. This means that all the closed-loop
i−1 i=1
2 signals are bounded. In addition, integrating (33) from 0 to t
Xn n
X and dividing the result by t yields
g0 2
+ ²i δ + z θ̃. (31) n Z
i=1 i=1
2a2i i 1 a0 X t 2
(V (t) − V (0)) ≤ − z + d0
t t i=1 0 i
At the present stage,we summarize our main result in the
following Theorem. which implies that the error in the mean square zms is given
Theorem 1. Consider the system (1) with Assumptions 1- by
3. Then for any bounded initial conditions, under the action Z
1 t 1
of the adaptive controller (2) with i = n together with the zms = ||z||2 ds ≤ (V (0)/t + d0 ). (35)
t 0 a0
intermediate virtual control signals (2) and the adaptive law
(4), for 1 ≤ i ≤ n − 1, all signals in the resulting closed-loop The proof is thus completed.
system are semi-globally bounded; and in the mean square Rt
Remark 5. Note that zms = 1t 0 ||z||2 ds. Mathematically,
sense, the error signal z1 will remain inside a compact set it denotes the second order moment of z, which is the sum of
defined by mean square and the square of mathematical expectation of z.
½ ¾ Since the mathematical expectation of the tracking error, i.e.,
1
Ωz = z ∈ Rn |zms ≤ (V (0)/t + d0 ) z1 , is zero, the second order moment of z1 is thus its mean
a0
square. Hereby, when (35) holds, in the mean square sense,
R
1 t the error signal z1 remains inside the set Ω.
with z = [z1 , z2 , ..., zn ]T , zms = 2
t 0 ||z|| ds,
a0 P = ¡ min {gi λi , σg0 /2r¢ : iP
= 1, 2, ..., n} and
n n
d0 = i=1 12 a2i + ε2i gi−1 + σg2r
0 2
θ + i=1 δ² i . IV. S IMULATION E XAMPLE
Proof. Choose the Lyapunov function candidate as
In this section, two examples are used to illustrate the
g0 2
V = Vn + θ̃ . effectiveness of the proposed result.
2r Example 1. Consider the following nonlinear delayed sys-
The time derivative of V is given by. tem [8]
n
X n
X 1¡ ¢ ẋ1 = x1 e0.5x1 + (1 + x21 )x2 + sin(x1 (τ1 )),
V̇ ≤ − λi gi zi2 + a2i + ε2i gi−1
2 ẋ2 = x1 x22 + (3 + cos(x1 ))u + x1 (τ2 )x2 (τ2 ),
i−1 i=1
n
à n ! y = x1 .
X g0 X r
2
+ ²i δ + θ̃ 2 zi − θ̇ . (32)
i=1
r i=1
2ai The reference signal is assumed to be yd =
0.5 (sin(t) + sin(0.5t)) . It is easy to check that this
It is easy to prove that system satisfies Assumptions 1-2. Choose φ1 (s) = s and
à n ! φ2 (s) = s2 . Thus φ1 and φ2 are monotonically increasing
g0 X r
2 σg0 ³ ∗2 2
´
functions and Assumption 3 holds. To control this system,
θ̃ z − θ̇ ≤ θ − θ̃ .
r i=1
2a2i i 2r according to Theorem 1, the control law and adaption law

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are designed as follows.

1 1
α1 = −(λ1 + 0.5)z1 − z1 θ,
2a21 0.8

0.6
1
u = −(λ2 + 0.5)z2 − 2 z2 θ, 0.4

2a2 0.2

0
X2
r 2 −0.2

θ̇ = z − σθ.
i=1
2a2i i −0.4

−0.6

The corresponding design parameters are chosen as: λ1 = −0.8

−1

λ2 = 18, a1 = a2 = 5, r = 5 and σ = 0.15. The simulation 0 10 20 30

Time(sec)
40 50 60

is run under the initial conditions x(t) = [0.25, 0]T and θ(0) =
0, for −3 ≤ t ≤ 0, and τ1 = 2 and τ2 = 3. Figs. 1-4. display Fig. 1 y (solid line) and yd (dash-dotted line) for example 1.
the simulation results. Fig. 1 shows the system’s output and
the reference signal. Fig. 2 displays the control input signal.
Fig. 3 and Fig. 4 show the responses of state variable x2 and
the adaptive parameter curve, respectively. 20

Example 2. To further illustrate the effectiveness of our

0
results, consider the following 3rd-order system
= x1 sin x1 + (0.5 + x21 )x2 + 0.5x31 (τ1 ),
−20
ẋ1
= x22 e0.5x1 + (1 + 0.5 cos(x1 x2 ))x3 + x1 (τ2 )x22 (τ2 ),
−40
ẋ2
µ ¶
sin x3 −60

ẋ3 = x1 x23 e−x2 + 1 + 0.5 u

1 + x21 + x22 −80

+0.5x3 (τ3 )x2 (τ3 ) sin(x1 (τ3 )), −100

0 10 20 30 40 50 60
Time(sec)

y = x1 .
The reference signal is given as yd = 0.5(sin(t) + sin(0.5t)). Fig. 2 u(t) for example 1.
Let φ1 = 0.5s, φ2 = s3 and φ3 = 0.5s2 . It is easy to
verify that Assumptions 1-3 hold. By Theorem 1, the following
control law and adaptive law can be obtained
1 2
α1 = −(λ1 + 0.5)z1 − 2 z1 θ,
2a1 1

1
α2 = −(λ2 + 0.5)z2 − 2 z2 θ, 0

2a2
1 −1

u = −(λ3 + 0.5)z3 − 2 z3 θ,
2a3 −2

X 3
r 2 −3

θ̇ = z − σθ
i=1
2a2i i −4
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
Time(sec)

with the corresponding design parameters being: λ1 = λ2 =

22, λ3 = 30, a1 = a2 = a3 = 5, r = 15 and σ = 0.15. The Fig. 3 x2 for example 1.
simulation is carried out under the initial conditions x(0) = [0,
0, 0]T and θ(0) = 0 for t ∈ [−3, 0]. Figs. 5-8. display the
simulation results. Fig. 5 shows the system’s output and the
reference signal. Fig. 6 displays the control input signal. Fig. 0.015

7 and Fig. 8 show the responses of state variables x2 and x3 ,

and the adaptive parameter curve, respectively.
From the simulations, it can be seen that the proposed 0.01

controller guarantees that the all the signals in the closed-

loop system are bounded, while the system’s output converges 0.005

to a small neighborhood of the reference signal. It is worth

to point out that unlike the existing adaptive fuzzy control
approaches, the proposed controller contains only one adaptive 0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
Time(sec)
law regardless the order of the system in consideration and no
information is required on the fuzzy logic rule base. These
Fig. 4. θ(t) for example 1.
features result in a simplified control design procedure and
much less computation burden.

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V. C ONCLUSION
1
In this paper, the problem of adaptive tracking control has
0.8

0.6
been addressed for a class of nonlinear strict-feedback sys-
0.4
tems with time-delays. Based on novel Lyapunov-Krasovskii
0.2 functionals, an adaptive controller has been constructed. The
0
proposed controller ensures that all the signals of the result-
−0.2

−0.4
ing closed-loop system are bounded and the tracking error
−0.6 converges to a small neighborhood of the origin. A main
−0.8
feature of the proposed adaptive control design scheme is
−1
0 10 20 30
Time(sec)
40 50 60
that the designer need not to construct fuzzy logic systems
and the proposed controller contains only one adaption law.
Fig. 5 y (solid line) and yd (dash-dotted line) for example 2. However, because of backstepping, it is required that the
system in consideration is in strict-feedback structure. So
like the existing results by backstepping, the proposed design
method has limited applications.
250

200 ACKNOWLEDGMENT
150
This work was supported by the National Natural Science
100

50
Foundation of China (No.60674055, No.60774047), the Tais-
0
han Scholar Programme and the Natural Science Foundation
−50 of Shandong Province, P. R. China
−100

−150

−200
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Express Letters, 3 (4)(A): 871-876, 2009. Chong LIN received the B.Sci and the M.Sci in Applied Mathematics
from the Northeastern University, P.R.China, in 1989 and 1992, respectively,
and the Ph.D. in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the Nanyang
Technological University, Singapore, in 1999. He was a Research Associate
with the Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Hong Kong,
in 1999. From 2000 to 2006, he was a Research Fellow with the Department
of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore.
Since 2006, he has been a professor with the Institute of Complexity Science,
Qingdao University, China. He has published more than 60 research papers
and co-authored two monographs. His current research interests are mainly
in systems analysis and control, robust control and fuzzy control .

Bing CHEN received the B.A. degree in mathe-

matics from Liaoning University, P. R. China, the
M.A. degree in mathematics from Harbin Institute
of Technology, P. R. China, and the Ph.D. degree in
PLACE electrical engineering from Northeastern University,
PHOTO P. R. China, in 1982, 1991 and 1998, respectively.
HERE Currently, he is a Professor with the Institute of
Complexity Science, Qingdao University, Qingdao,
P. R. China. His research interest includes nonlinear
control systems, robust control, and adaptive fuzzy
control.

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