Event-triggered dynamic surface control of uncertain nonlinear systems

In this paper, an event-triggered dynamic surface controller is proposed for strict-feedback nonlinear networked systems with mismatched uncertainties. Towards this aim and first of all, an event-based dynamic surface control law is designed. Then, the closed-loop error dynamics is derived and rewritten as a linear dynamics with nonlinear perturbation terms. Next, these terms are classified into vanishing and nonvanishing perturbations. Finally, by imposing some constraints on the nonvanishing terms, an event-triggering mechanism is constructed. By formulating the imposed constraints in the form of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) and using the ultimate boundedness theory, the ultimate error boundedness and quadratic tracking objectives are addressed in the framework of convex optimisation. The absence of the Zeno behaviour, which is an important feature of any event-triggered methodology, is also proven. The validity of the theoretical results is illustrated by applying the proposed method to a remotely operated underwater vehicle in a simulation study as well as an experimental implementation on a magnetic levitation system.