Forwarding Control Design for Strict-Feedforward Systems

Abstract

This paper presents a new recursive forwarding method to design control laws that globally asymptotically stabilize strict-feedforward systems, of which Jacobian linearization at the origin might not be stabilizable. At each step, a Lyapunov function is constructed based on a solution of a linear partial differential equation (PDE) or a system of globally asymptotically stable (GAS) ordinary differential equations (ODEs). Optimal and bounded control designs are also addressed. The flexibility of the proposed design is illustrated via five examples.