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Abstract and Applied Analysis

Volume 2015, Article ID 637632, 2 pages
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2015/637632

Editorial
New Trends in Nonlinear Control Systems and Applications

Zhitao Liu,1 Deqing Huang,2 Yifan Xing,3 Chuanke Zhang,4

Zhengguang Wu,1 and Xiaofu Ji5
1
State Key Laboratory of Industrial Control Technology, Institute of Cyber-Systems and Control, Zhejiang University,
Hangzhou 310027, China
2
Department of Aeronautics, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UK
3
Frick Chemistry Laboratory, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
4
Department of Electrical Engineering and Electronics, The University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 3GJ, UK
5
Department of Electrical Engineering, School of Electrical and Information Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang 212013, China

Correspondence should be addressed to Zhitao Liu; ztliu@iipc.zju.edu.cn

Received 15 March 2015; Accepted 15 March 2015

Copyright © 2015 Zhitao Liu et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License,
which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Nature is nonlinear in general as the responses of physics and
engineering systems are nonlinear. The approximate method
is a simple and good tool to deal with nonlinear effects
sometimes, but it usually damages the original characteristics
of nonlinear systems and leads to inaccuracy, misunderstand-
ing, or incorrect conclusions. The designer must be acquainted
with the basic techniques available for considering nonlinear
systems. He must be able to analyze the effects of unwanted
nonlinearities in the system and to synthesize nonlinearities
into the system to improve dynamic performance [1].
In the past few years, nonlinear control systems have
experienced a growing popularity and these developments
are motivated by extensive applications, in particular, to such
area as mechanical systems, aircraft flight control systems,
and electrical systems. A number of new ideas, approaches,
and results have appeared in the field of nonlinear control
systems.
For all control systems, stability is the primary require-
ment. One of the most widely used stability concepts in
control theory is Lyapunov stability. Lyapunov stability theory
was used extensively in system analysis and design, and many
nonlinear system technologies are developed based on it.
The notions of energy and dissipation are related to
Lyapunov theory and a theory for dissipative systems is
developed in [2]. Energy and dissipation are the fundamental
concepts in science and engineering practice, where it is com-
mon to view dynamical systems as energy-transformation
devices. The control problem can then be recast as finding
a dynamical system and an interconnection pattern to make
the overall energy function take the desired form. This energy
shaping approach is the essence of passivity-based control
(PBC), a controller design technique that is very well known
in mechanical systems and electrical systems now [3].
The notions of control Lyapunov functions and input-to-
state stability for nonlinear control systems were introduced
in [4]. The successes of this theory have been due in large part
to its ability to analyze complicated structures on the basis of
the behavior of elementary subsystems in a suitable input-
output sense (stable, passive, etc.), in conjunction with the
use of tools such as the small gain theorem to characterize
interconnections. The theory has been applied to chemical
process and biology.
Differential geometry has also been proved to be an
effective means of analysis and design for nonlinear control
systems, and the notions of controllability and observability
of nonlinear systems were investigated [5]. Isidori introduced
the notion of zero dynamics and gave the geometry control
theory in [6]. There are many interesting applications of
geometrical control theory, for example, aircraft flying at high
angles of attack, walking robots, and quantum systems [1].
The estimation for some internal information or states
naturally arises in control systems, as one cannot use sensors
to measure the signals in some conditions. Then the problem
of observer design is also important for nonlinear control
2 Abstract and Applied Analysis

systems. Many kinds of observer designs for nonlinear [4] E. D. Sontag and Y. Wang, “On characterizations of the input-
control systems and applications are shown in [7]. to-state stability property,” Systems & Control Letters, vol. 24, no.
Another important research field for nonlinear control 5, pp. 351–359, 1995.
systems is to design controllers to deal with uncertainty, [5] R. Brockett, “The early days of geometric nonlinear control,”
mainly due to lack of knowledge of the system parameters, Automatica, vol. 50, no. 9, pp. 2203–2224, 2014.
modeling errors, and external disturbances. According to [6] A. Isidori, Nonlinear Control Systems, Communications and
these requirements, adaptive control is developed to estimate Control Engineering Series, Springer, Berlin, Germany, Third
the unknown parameters and has grown to be one of the rich- edition, 1995.
est fields in terms of algorithms, design techniques, analytical [7] G. Besancon, Nonlinear Observers and Applications, Springer,
tools, and modifications [8, 9]. However, an adaptive scheme Berlin, Germany, 2007.
design for a disturbance-free plant model may go unstable [8] K. J. Astrom and B. Wittenmark, Adaptive Control, Dover
in the presence of small disturbances; then robust adaptive Publications, Mineola, NY, USA, 2008.
control is developed, which can deal with the parameter [9] G. Tao, Adaptive Control Design and Analysis, John Wiley &
uncertainties, modeling errors, and external disturbances Sons, Hoboken, NJ, USA, 2003.
[10]. [10] P. A. Ioannou and J. Sun, Robust Adaptive Control, Prentice Hall,
Modern heuristic black-box type control approaches for 1995.
nonlinear control systems, also called intelligent control, such [11] R. Goebel, R. G. Sanfelice, and A. R. Teel, Hybrid Dynamical Sys-
as neural networks, machine learning, and fuzzy logic, have tems: Modeling, Stability, and Robustness, Princeton University
been used widely. It does not necessarily require an analytical Press, 2012.
model, and they are developed on the basis of data. These
methodologies could be applied to big data research, which
is very interesting research field in computer science.
Last but not least, a special kind of nonlinear control
systems, hybrid dynamical system, exhibits characteristics of
both continuous-time and discrete-time dynamical systems
[11]. It actually arises in a great variety of applications, such as
manufacturing systems, air traffic management, automotive
engine control, and chemical process. Hybrid dynamical sys-
tems have also a central role in networked embedded control
systems which interact with the physical world and human
operators, like cyber-physical systems (CPS). So far, many
theories and technologies for hybrid dynamical systems have
been developed.
The field of nonlinear control systems has a bright future
since there are many important and interesting challenges.
The applications of nonlinear control systems, such as energy,
health care, robots, biology, and big data research, will make
the advanced theories and technologies be developed quickly.
We hope that the readers of system theory will find their
interesting research topics for nonlinear control systems in
this special issue.
Zhitao Liu
Deqing Huang
Yifan Xing
Chuanke Zhang
Zhengguang Wu
Xiaofu Ji

References
[1] K. J. Astrom and P. R. Kumar, “Control: a perspective,” Auto-
matica, vol. 50, no. 1, pp. 3–43, 2014.
[2] J. C. Willems, “Dissipative dynamical systems. I. General
theory,” Archive for Rational Mechanics and Analysis, vol. 45, pp.
321–351, 1972.
[3] R. Ortega, A. Lorı́a, P. J. Nicklasson, and H. Sira-Ramı́rez,
Passivity-Based Control of Euler-Lagrange Systems: Mechanical,
Electrical and Electromechanical Applications, Springer, Berlin,
Germany, 1998.
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