Applied Mathematics and Computation 360 (2019) 14–27

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Applied Mathematics and Computation

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/amc

Sampled-data controller design and stability analysis for

nonlinear systems with input saturation and disturbances
Wenhui Liu a, Junwei Lu a, Shengyuan Xu b,∗, Yongmin Li c, Zhengqiang Zhang d
a
School of Electrical and Automation Engineering, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210023, China
b
School of Automation, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing 210094, China
c
School of Science, Huzhou Teachers College, Huzhou, Zhejiang 313000, China
d
School of Electrical Engineering and Automation, Qufu Normal University, Rizhao, Shandong 276826, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Keywords: In modern control theory, it is more applicable for digital computers using a sampled-data
Nonlinear systems controller than a continuous-time controller. Meanwhile, input saturation and disturbance
Disturbance observer
inevitably exist in control systems. Thus, how to propose an applicable sampled-data con-
Sampled-data control
troller for nonlinear systems considering input saturation together with external distur-
Input saturation
bances is essential for applications. To deal with this control problem, a novel auxiliary
control signal is designed in this paper. Then, by using Lyapunov method, the control de-
sign process is simplified compared with the traditional backstepping technique, and only
one Lyapunov function is needed. In addition, the state and disturbance observers are pro-
posed with the new auxiliary control signal to track the unavailable states and external
disturbances. Finally, we propose a novel controller reflecting the sampled-data output-
feedback for the nonlinear systems to ensure the system stability. The effectiveness of pro-
posed control method in this paper is confirmed through two sets of numerical simulation
results.
© 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

In modern control theory, sampled-data control plays an indispensable role, since most modern controllers are digital or
discrete to the systems, see [1–13]. The application of sampled-data control is beneficial to improve the control accuracy
and anti-interference ability of the system, as well as to improve the utilization and generality of the controller. With the
popularity of microcomputers, sampled-data control shows its superiority. In practical engineering, most systems are in
nonlinear forms [14–18]. For the nonlinear systems, a very interesting perspective is to consider the sampled-data output-
feedback control of the closed-loop system under zero-order hold [3,19]. In [5], state-feedback together with output-feedback
sampled-data controllers were designed to ensure the asymptotical stability of the uncertain active suspension systems.
In [4], a memory sampled-data controller was proposed to ensure the Takagi Sugeno fuzzy systems stability. Meanwhile,
disturbances and input saturation widely exist in control systems. However, when the systems are under these conditions,
it can be difficult to deal with the sampled-data state-feedback or output-feedback control problem in the control systems,
and the aforementioned works have not proposed an effective solution.
Input saturation as one of the input constraints is ubiquitous and critical for practical applications [20,21], which
rises undesirable inaccuracy or causes instability for control systems. Many recent results have reported the saturation to

∗
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: syxu@njust.edu.cn, syxu02@aliyun.com (S. Xu).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amc.2019.04.024
0 096-30 03/© 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
 W. Liu, J. Lu and S. Xu et al. / Applied Mathematics and Computation 360 (2019) 14–27 15

construct and analyze the control systems, for example [22–28]. In [27], an adaptive controller has been designed for a
class of nonlinear systems with input saturation using fuzzy logic systems. In [28], an adaptive fuzzy control problem for a
class of stochastic nonlinear systems with input saturation was solved. In most above-mentioned literatures, backstepping
method was utilized, and the nonlinear terms of the saturation function can be approximated or limited by fuzzy logic
systems/neural networks or growth conditions in each step. Although backstepping technique is one of the effective meth-
ods to solve the control problems for nonlinear systems, n Lyapunov functions and n − 1 virtual controllers for n-dimension
nonlinear systems must be designed in each subsystems using this method. To simplify the control process, if the back-
stepping technique is not utilized for the control systems, these existing approaches are not applicable. Thus, it is still a
difficult and non-trivial task to consider the control systems with input saturation. Inspired by these works above, for the
nonlinear systems with input saturation and external disturbances, the sampled-data controller design needs to be further
investigated.
On the other hand, disturbances and system uncertainties comprehensively exist in practical control process, that may
bring negative effects on the control performance [29–34]. How to design and analyze the control schemes for nonlinear
systems with external disturbances becomes an urgent issue to be solved. Therefore, various disturbance observers have
been proposed to achieve the disturbance rejection, such as [35–41]. For example, a disturbance observer-based adaptive
controller for nonlinear systems considering the uncertainties using neural networks was employed in [42]. In [43], a distur-
bance observer was constructed and applied for a pneumatic muscle system. However, it is not straightforward to establish
a disturbance observer in the output-feedback control of the nonlinear system, since the disturbance observer should be
contained in the state observer. In the current study, we aim to design a new disturbance observer to estimate the external
disturbances, and the estimated disturbances are used to construct the state observer. In this case, when the input signal
is subject to constraints, the control problem becomes more difficult since the performance of closed-loop system can be
severely reduced due to the physical limitation of actuator.
However, very limited studies have been carried out the sample-data stability issue for a nonlinear system with in-
put saturation and disturbances. Most related existing nonlinear control schemes for nonlinear systems use backstepping
method to obtain a continuous-time controller. In order to simplify the control design process, and reduce the selections of
Lyapunov functions in each subsystem using backstepping method, a Lyapunov function-based sampled-data control scheme
is proposed in this paper. Only one Lyapunov function is needed using this proposed control method. To this end, sampled-
data output-feedback control for nonlinear systems considering the external disturbance together with input saturation is
investigated in this paper. The innovations and contributions in current study are included as follows:

(i) A novel auxiliary control signal is designed in the control scheme considering the input saturation, which skillfully
handles the nonlinear terms caused by saturation. Further, the new changes of coordinates are defined using this
designed auxiliary control signal;
(ii) The state and disturbance observers are designed with the new auxiliary control signal to track the system states and
external disturbances;
(iii) The sampled-data output-feedback controller under a sampler and zero-order device is proposed to ensure the sta-
bility of the closed-loop nonlinear system. Compared with the related existing work [3], the input saturation together
with external disturbances are further considered in current study.

The remainder of the current study is structured as follows. The formulation and preliminaries of the proposed method
is demonstrated in Section 2. Following the formulations, Section 3 developed the sampled data controller for the control
problem. In Section 4, the stability of the closed loop is analysed. Finally, the effectiveness of proposed control method is
further confirmed using the simulation examples.
Notation. This paper uses standard notation. Rn refers to the sets of real space. Rn×m refers to the sets of real n × m-
dimensional space. Function f (x ) ∈ C (Rn , Rn ) represents that f(x) is continuous in the real n-dimensional space. Euclidean
norm is represented by | · |.

2. Formulation and preliminaries of the control scheme

The following closed-loop nonlinear system considering input saturation together with disturbances is investigated
x˙ i (t ) = xi+1 (t ) + fi (t , x(t )) + di (t )
x˙ n (t ) = μ(u(t )) + fn (t, x(t )) + dn (t ) (2.1)
y(t ) = x1 (t )

where variable x(t ) = (x1 (t ), . . . , xn (t ))T ∈ Rn is the system state, u(t ) ∈ R represents the control input, μ(u(t)) is the input
saturation, y(t ) ∈ R represents the system output, fi (t, x(t )), i = 1, . . . , n are nonlinear functions, and di (t ), i = 1, . . . , n are
external disturbances.
The control input is actualized in discrete-time by a sampler and zero-order device

u(t ) = u(tk ), for all t ∈ [tk , tk+1 ), tk = kT , k = 1, 2, . . . (2.2)

where u is the control input, the time instant tk and tk+1 are sampling points, and T is the sampling period.
16 W. Liu, J. Lu and S. Xu et al. / Applied Mathematics and Computation 360 (2019) 14–27

For an actuator, there may exist the saturation. Therefore, the saturation function used in this paper will be introduced
as follows.
Consider the following saturation function

sign(u )μN , |u| ≥ μN
μ(u ) = sat(u ) = (2.3)
u, |u| < μN

where μN is the bound of μ(u). From [23,24], the following formula is obtained for the saturation function
 u  u −u
e μN − e μN
ϕ (u ) = μN tanh = μN u −u .
μN e μN + e μN
Then the saturation function is

sat(u ) = ϕ (u ) + h(u )
where

|h(u )| = |sat(u ) − ϕ (u )| ≤ μN (1 − tanh (1 ) ) = h̄.

Based on Remark 2 in [26], we have g0 ≤ g0 (uγ0 ) ≤ ḡ0 , for every u ∈ R, where g0 and ḡ0 are positive constants.
Then, two assumptions are needed to construct the control scheme.

Assumption 2.1. The disturbances di (t) and d˙i (t ) are bounded, where i = 1, . . . , n, that is, there are upper bounds and lower
bounds for di (t) and d˙i (t ), respectively.
Therefore, we have
|di (t )| ≤ βi ,
|d˙i (t )| ≤ βi0
where constants β i > 0 and β i0 > 0 are bounds of |di (t)| and |d˙i (t )|, respectively.

Assumption 2.2. For the nonlinear function fi (t, x(t)), where i = 1, . . . , n, the following inequality holds:

| fi (t, x(t ))| ≤ γ (|x1 (t )| + . . . |xi (t )| )

where γ ≥ 0 is a constant.

Remark 2.1. Assumptions 2.1 and 2.2 are common for the disturbance observer design and nonlinear control scheme design
[3,36]. The two assumptions are both utilized to prove the system stability. In practical engineering plants, the type of
assumptions can be realized easily.

The control aims of the proposed controller are presented as follows:

(1) Design the state observers and disturbance observers to evaluate the unavailable states together with external distur-
bances.
(2) Propose a novel sampled-data output-feedback controller for nonlinear problems with input saturation and distur-
bances.
(3) Prove and analyze the stability of the closed-loop nonlinear system.

3. The scheme of the sampled-data controller

In this section, the control design process will be presented by a new designed auxiliary control signal and the change
of coordinates. The state and disturbance observers are proposed with the auxiliary control signal.

3.1. State observer and disturbance observer design

First, we introduce the following auxiliary control signal:

ς˙ = −ς + (ϕ (v ) − v ) (3.1)
where v is the applied control input will be constructed later, and
 v  v −v
e μN − e μN
ϕ (v ) = μN tanh = μN v −v .
μN e μN + e μN
 W. Liu, J. Lu and S. Xu et al. / Applied Mathematics and Computation 360 (2019) 14–27 17

The coordinate transformation is defined as

xi
ξi =
ai−1
ϕ (u )
ϕ (v ) =
an
di
d¯i = , i = 1, . . . , n − 1 (3.2)
ai−1
xn
ξn = − aς
an−1
dn h (u )
d¯n = + n−1
an−1 a
where the constant a ≥ 1 will be determined later.
For i = 1, . . . , n, system (2.1) becomes the following form under the coordinates changes
ξ˙i = aξi+1 + f¯i (t, ξ (t )) + d¯i (t )
ξ˙n = aϕ (v(t )) + f¯n (t, ξ (t )) + d¯n (t ) − aς˙ (3.3)
y(t ) = ξ1 (t )
f (t,x(t ))
where f¯i (t, ξ (t )) = i i−1 .
a
The following variables which will be used in the control design procedure are defined
⎡ ⎤ ⎡ ⎤
ξ1 (t ) d¯1 (t )
⎢ξ2 (t )⎥ ⎢d¯ (t )⎥
ξ (t ) = ⎢ ⎥, d¯(t ) = ⎢ 2
⎢ . ⎥,
⎥
⎣ . ⎦
.
⎣ . ⎦
. .
ξn (t ) d¯n (t )
⎡ ⎤
f¯1 (t )
⎢ f¯ (t )⎥
⎢ 2 ⎥
F (t, ξ (t )) = ⎢ . ⎥.
⎣ .. ⎦
f¯n (t )
Therefore
d¯(t ) ≤ β
where constant β > 0 is the upper bound of d¯(t ).
With the above-defined variables, system (3.3) is transformed to

ξ˙ (t ) = aMξ (t ) + aNϕ (v(t )) + F (t , ξ (t )) + d¯(t ) − aNς˙

(3.4)
y(t ) = Q ξ (t )
where
⎡ ⎤ ⎡ ⎤ ⎡ ⎤T
0 1 ··· 0 0 1
⎢ .. .. .. .. ⎥ ⎢0 ⎥ ⎢ 0⎥
M = ⎢. . . . ⎥, N = ⎢ . ⎥, Q = ⎢ . ⎥ .
⎣0 0 ··· 1
⎦ ⎣ .. ⎦ ⎣ .. ⎦
0 0 ··· 0 1 0
Then the state observer is designed as follows:

ξˆ˙i (t ) = aξˆi+1 (t ) + abi (ξ1 (tk ) − ξˆ1 (t )) + dˆi (t )

(3.5)
ξˆ˙n (t ) = a(ϕ (v(tk )) − ς˙ ) + abn (ξ1 (tk ) − ξˆ1 (t )) + dˆn (t )
where bi , i = 1, . . . , n are coefficients of the Hurwitz polynomial z1 (s ) = sn + bn sn−1 + . . . + b2 s + b1 , and the gains
K = [k1 , k2 , . . . , kn ], ki > 0, i = 1, . . . , n
are coefficients of the Hurwitz polynomial
z2 (s ) = sn + kn sn−1 + . . . + k2 s + k1 .
Then, state observer (3.5) becomes

ξˆ˙ (t ) = aMˆ ξˆ (t ) + aNϕ (v(tk )) + aX ξ1 (tk ) + dˆ(t ) (3.6)

18 W. Liu, J. Lu and S. Xu et al. / Applied Mathematics and Computation 360 (2019) 14–27

where
 T
ξˆ (t ) = ξˆ1 (t ), ξˆ2 (t ), . . . , ξˆn (t ) ,
dˆ(t ) = [dˆ1 (t ), dˆ2 (t ), . . . , dˆn (t )]T ,
T ˆ = M − X Q.
X = [b 1 , b 2 , . . . , b n ] , M
Design the disturbance observer as follows:

dˆi = −li (ξˆi − pi )

(3.7)
p˙ i = aξˆi+1 + abi (ξ1 (tk ) − ξˆ1 (t ))
where li > 0.
Then
˙ ˙
dˆi = −li (ξˆi − p˙ i ) = −li dˆi . (3.8)
Then we have

e˙ i = −li ei + d¯˙i + li d¯i (3.9)

where ei = d¯i − dˆi .

Remark 3.1. Disturbance observers designed in this paper are effectively used to estimate the mismatched and unavailable
disturbances. Using the designed disturbance observer-based control scheme, a good disturbance-rejection performance can
be achieved.

3.2. Sampled-data controller design with input saturation

With the observers (3.5) and (3.7), the following sampled-data controller is designed as

v(t ) = v(tk ) = −K ξˆ (tk ) − ς (3.10)

where

tk ≤ t ≤ tk+1 , T = tk+1 − tk .
According to the control law (3.10), together with (3.4) and (3.6), we have the new closed-loop system with t ∈ [tk , tk+1 )
as follows:
         
ξ˙ (t ) M 0 ξ (t ) N 0 0
=a + a ϕ ( v (t )) + a ξ (t ) +
ξˆ˙ (t ) 0 ˆ
M ξˆ (t ) N k
X 1 k
dˆ(t )
     
d¯(t ) F (t, ξ (t )) N
+ + −a ς˙
0 0 N
    
M 0 ξ (t ) N
=a
0 Mˆ ξˆ (t ) + a N (ϕ (v(tk ) − v(tk ))
           
F (t , ξ (t ))
ς˙ + d (t ) +
N 0 0 N ¯
+a v(tk ) + a ξ1 (tk ) + ˆ −a . (3.11)
N X d (t ) N 0 0

Substitute (3.1) into (3.11), we have

        
ξ˙ (t ) M 0 ξ (t ) N N
=a +a (ς˙ + ς ) + a v(tk )
˙
ξ (t )
ˆ 0 ˆ
M ξˆ (t ) N N
         
F (t , ξ (t ))
ς˙ + d (t ) +
0 0 N ¯
+a ξ1 (tk ) + ˆ −a . (3.12)
X d (t ) N 0 0

Note that
ξ1 (tk ) = Q ξ (tk ) = Q ξ (t ) + Q (ξ (tk ) − ξ (t )),
ξˆ (tk ) = ξˆ (t ) + ξˆ (tk ) − ξˆ (t ),
system (3.11) can be written as
 W. Liu, J. Lu and S. Xu et al. / Applied Mathematics and Computation 360 (2019) 14–27 19

      
ξ˙ (t ) M −NK ξ (t ) N
ˆ − NK ξˆ (t ) − a N K (ξ (tk ) − ξ (t ))
= a ˆ ˆ
ξˆ˙ (t ) XQ M
       
0 0 d¯(t ) F (t , ξ (t ))
+a Q (ξ (tk ) − ξ (t )) + + + (3.13)
X −E (t ) d¯(t ) 0

where E (t ) = d¯(t ) − dˆ(t ) = [e1 (t ), e2 (t ), . . . , en (t )]T .

Denote
   
M −NK M −NK
= ˆ − BK = X Q .
XQ M M − X Q − NK
Meanwhile, from
 
M −NK
= ˆ − NK
XQ M
 −1   
I 0 M − NK −NK I 0
= ,
−I I 0 ˆ
M −I I
it is shown that  is a Hurwitz matrix.
Here we assume that a common positive definite matrix exists P = P T ∈ R2n×2n > 0 with matrix  , such that
 T P + P = −I
where I ∈ Rn×n is the n × n identity matrix.
Define


ξ (t )
(t ) = ˆ .
ξ (t )
The following Lyapunov function is chosen to analyze the stability of the closed-loop system
V () = T P . (3.14)
The time derivative of the Lyapunov function V(t) is
   
F (t, ξ (t )) N
V˙ ((t )) = −a(t )2 + 2(t )T P + 2a(t )T P K (ξˆ (tk ) − ξˆ (t ))
0 N
     
0 d¯(t ) 0
+ 2a(t )T P (ξ1 (tk ) − ξ1 (t )) + 2(t )T P ¯ + 2(t )T P . (3.15)
X d (t ) −E (t )

4. Stability analysis

The stability of system (2.1) under sampled-data controller (3.10) will be analyzed in this section.

Theorem 4.1. The designed sampled-data output feedback controller

v(t ) = v(tk ) = −K ξˆ (tk ) − ς
for all t ∈ [tk , tk+1 ), tk = kT , k = 0, 1, 2, . . .
guarantees that system (2.1) is ultimately bounded, where the parameter a and T satisfy the following condition:
a − 2c1 λmax (P ) − γ1 a2 T − γ2 aT − γ3 > γ ∗
where γ 1 , γ 2 , γ 3 are positive constants, and constant γ ∗ > 0 is known.

The proof of Theorem 4.1 will be provided below.

Proof. From [3] and Assumption 2.2, we have the following estimate:
  
 
2(t )T P F (t, ξ (t ))  ≤ 2c1 λmax (P )(t )2 (4.1)
 0 
√
where c1 = γ 1 + 2 + · · · + n > 0.
From ξ˙1 (t ) = aξ2 (t ) + f¯1 (t , ξ (t )) + d¯1 (t ) and Assumptions 2.1 and 2.2, we have
|ξ˙1 (τ )| ≤ a|ξ2 (τ )| + γ |ξ1 (τ )| + |d¯1 (τ )|
√
≤ a 2(γ + 1 )(t ) + β1 (4.2)
= aγ11 (t ) + β1
√
where γ11 = a 2(γ + 1 ).
20 W. Liu, J. Lu and S. Xu et al. / Applied Mathematics and Computation 360 (2019) 14–27

Then, we have
 t
|ξ1 (tk ) − ξ1 (t )| ≤ |ξ˙1 (τ )|dτ
tk (4.3)
≤ aγ11 (t )(t − tk ) + β1 (t − tk ).
Using Young’s inequality and PPT ≤ 1, we have the following inequality:
   
 
2a(t )T P 0 β1 (t − tk ) ≤ a2 X 2 (t − tk )2 T (t )PPT (t ) + β12
 X  (4.4)
≤ a2 X 2 (t − tk )2 (λmax (P ))2 (t )2 + β12 .
Next, the following term is estimated:
 t
|K (ξˆ (tk ) − ξˆ (t ))| ≤ K |ξˆ˙ (τ )|dτ (4.5)
tk

where for any τ ∈ [tk , t)

|K ξˆ˙ (τ )| =|KaAˆ ξˆ (τ ) − KaNK ξˆ (tk ) + KaX ξ1 (tk ) + K dˆ(t )|

(4.6)
≤aAˆ K (τ ) + a(K NK  + KX  )(tk ) + K (dˆ(t ) − d¯(t ) + d¯(t )).
Then we have
|K (ξˆ (tk ) − ξˆ (t ))| ≤ aγ21 (t )(t − tk )
(4.7)
+ K E (t )(t − tk ) + K β (t − tk )
where

γ21 = Aˆ K  + KNK  + KX .

Similar to (4.4), we have
     2
   
2a(t )T P N K β (t − tk ) ≤ a2 K 2  N  (t − tk )2 T (t )PPT (t ) + β 2
 N   N 
≤ 2a2 K 2 (t − tk )2 (λmax (P ))2 (t )2 + β 2 (4.8)
and
  
 
2(t )T P d (t )  ≤ T (t )PPT (t ) + 2β 2
¯
 d (t ) 
¯ (4.9)
≤ (λmax (P ))2 (t )2 + 2β 2 .
Then, it is clear that
   
 
2a(t )T P N K E (t )(t − tk )
 N  (4.10)
≤2a2 K 2 (λmax (P ))2 (t )2 (t − tk )2 + E (t )2 ,
and
  
 
2(t )T P 0  ≤ (λmax (P ))2 (t )2 + E (t )2 . (4.11)
 −E (t ) 

Substituting (4.3),(4.4) and (4.7)–(4.11) into (3.15), we obtain

V˙ ((t )) ≤ − [a − 2c1 λmax (P )](t )2

  
 0 
+ 2γ11 a2 (t )
P
(t )(t − tk )
X 
   (4.12)
 N 
+ 2γ21 a2 (t )
P
(t )(t − tk ) + β12 + 3β 2 + 2E (t )2
 N
+ (a (X  + 4K  )(t − tk )2 + 2 )(λmax (P ))2 (t )2 .
2 2 2

When E (t ) ≤ d˙ (t ), where d˙ (t ) = [d˙1 (t ), . . . , d˙n (t )]T , we have

 
V˙ ((t )) ≤ − a − 2c1 λmax (P ) − γ1 a2 (t − tk ) − γ2 a2 (t − tk )2 − γ3 (t )2 + β12 + 3β 2 + 2β02 (4.13)
 W. Liu, J. Lu and S. Xu et al. / Applied Mathematics and Computation 360 (2019) 14–27 21

where
 
N 
γ1 =2γ11 λmax (P )X  + 2γ21 λmax (P )
 

N
γ2 =(X 2 + 4K 2 )(λmax (P ))2
γ3 =2(λmax (P ))2

β0 = β10
2 + . . . + β2 .
n0

The parameter a and sampled period T can be chosen as

a − 2c1 λmax (P ) − γ1 a2 T − γ2 a2 T 2 − γ3 > γ ∗ (4.14)
where γ∗
> 0 is a constant.
From above-mentioned relation, it is shown that an optimal parameter a and a sampling period T should be chosen to
ensure the stability of the closed-loop system.
Then (4.15) can be written as

V˙ < −CV + ρ (4.15)

where
 
a − 2c1 λmax (P ) − γ1 a2 T − γ2 a2 T 2 − γ3
C = min
(λmax (P ))2
and ρ = β12 + 3β 2 + 2β02 .
From (4.15), it is deduced that
ρ
V (t ) ≤ V (t0 )e−C (t−t0 ) + , (4.16)
C
it can be shown that all the variables ξ i and xi for i = 1, . . . , n are bounded, where t0 is the initial condition of t.
Theorem 4.1 has been proved. 

Remark 4.1. Since the state observer gain and the sampling period satisfies
a − 2c1 λmax (P ) − γ1 a2 T − γ2 a2 T 2 − γ3 > γ ∗ ,
the optimal parameters a and T should be chosen online to ensure the output feedback stability of the closed-loop system.

Remark 4.2. Inspired by the related work [3], the sampled-data control scheme is proposed with the designed state ob-
server. However, the effect of either external disturbance or input saturation on the stability of the controller is ignored
in [3]. First, it is not direct to deal with the external disturbances, since the disturbance observer which we designed also
contains estimate states. In addition, the input saturation function is a typical nonlinear functions. Therefore, how to deal
with the sampled-data control problem under the disturbances and input saturation is not an easy work to solve. The main
focus and contributions of this paper are the sampled-data controller design and stability analysis of the closed-loop system
under disturbances and input saturation. An effective solution for this control problem has been proposed in this paper and
provides a reference for engineering application.

5. Illustrative examples

In this section, two numerical examples are used to confirm the effectiveness of the proposed controller scheme.

Example 5.1. The following nonlinear system is considered, and the nonlinear term is similar to [3]
x˙ 1 = x2 + sin (x1 ) ln (1 + x22 ) + d1 (t )
(5.1)
x˙ 2 = μ(u(t )) + d2 (t ).
The disturbances are
d1 (t ) = 0.2 sin(t )
and
d2 (t ) = 0.8 sin(t ).
The applied sampled-data controller is proposed as

v(tk ) = −K ξˆ (tk ) − ς . (5.2)

The reference parameters of the controller are chosen as a = 2.25, and l1 = 1.2, l2 = 1.3.
The controller gains are K = [1.4, 0.9]T . The sampling period is T = 0.1.
22 W. Liu, J. Lu and S. Xu et al. / Applied Mathematics and Computation 360 (2019) 14–27

Fig. 1. State trajectory x1 and its estimation xˆ1 .

Fig. 2. State trajectory x2 and its estimation xˆ2 .

Figs. 1 and 2 show the state trajectories and estimated state trajectories. Figs. 3 and 4 illustrate the external disturbances
and their estimates. It is observed that the states x1 and x2 are tracked well by their estimates, and bounded. The external
disturbances are also tracked by the disturbance observer.

Example 5.2. Consider the ship maneuvering system as follows [15]:

T0 h˙ + h + α h3 = K δ + φ T (ψ , h, δ )w (5.3)

where T0 is the time constant, ψ is the heading angle, h = ψ˙ represents the yaw rate, α denotes Norrbin coefficient, K is the
rudder gain, δ stands for the rudder angle, w is an r-dimensional independent standard Brownian motion, and φ T (ψ , h, δ ) :
R3 → R3×r is an unknown function
 W. Liu, J. Lu and S. Xu et al. / Applied Mathematics and Computation 360 (2019) 14–27 23

Fig. 3. Disturbance trajectory d1 and its estimation dˆ1 .

Fig. 4. Disturbance trajectory d2 and its estimation dˆ2 .

Let x1 = ψ , x2 = h, x3 = δ, and μ = δE , then system (5.3) can be rewritten as

x˙ 1 = x2
φ T (ψ , h, δ )w
x˙ 2 = bx3 + f +
T0
(5.4)
KE 1
x˙ 3 = μ − x3
TE TE
μ = sat(u )
where TE is the rudder time constant, KE is the rudder control gain, δ E is the rudder order, assume that for the ship maneu-
vering system, f satisfies the linear growth condition, b = TK .
0
In the simulation, Table 1 summarizes the chosen parameters of the ship.
24 W. Liu, J. Lu and S. Xu et al. / Applied Mathematics and Computation 360 (2019) 14–27

Table 1
Parameters of the ship maneuvering system.

Parameters Value Parameters Value

V(m/s) 3.9 T0 (s) 30

K(s−1 ) 31 τ 1 (s2 ) 40
TE (s) 3.8 KE 1.5

Fig. 5. State trajectory x1 and its estimation xˆ1 .

Fig. 6. State trajectory x2 and its estimation xˆ2 .

The sampled-data control input is proposed as

v(tk ) = − K ξˆ (tk ) − ς . (5.5)

The parameters are chosen as a = 2.4, and l1 = 1.25, l2 = 1.3.
The controller gains are K = [1.2, 0.5, 1.1]T . The sampling period is T = 0.1.
Figs. 5–7 show the state trajectories and estimated state trajectories. Fig. 8 illustrates the sampled-data input.
Based the results of the simulation, it is clear that the system stability can be ensured using the sampled-data controller.
The state observer and disturbance observer are effective to estimate the system states and external disturbances.
 W. Liu, J. Lu and S. Xu et al. / Applied Mathematics and Computation 360 (2019) 14–27 25

Fig. 7. State trajectory x3 and its estimation xˆ3 .

Fig. 8. Control input v.

6. Conclusions

The sampled-data control design scheme and stability analysis for nonlinear systems considering external disturbances
together with input saturation have been investigated in this work. First, a novel auxiliary control signal has been designed
to handle the saturation function. Then, with the new designed auxiliary control signal, the state and disturbance observers
have been proposed. With the two observers, a sampled-data output-feedback controller has been designed using the Lya-
punov method. It has been proved that the sampled-data controller guarantees the ultimate boundedness of the nonlin-
ear systems. Finally, two simulation examples have been provided to show the effectiveness of the designed new control
method. Compared with the traditional backstepping method to handle the control and stability issues for a nonlinear sys-
tem, only one Lyapunov function is chosen in this paper. The introduced auxiliary control signal can skillfully handle the
nonlinear term of the saturation function. In the future work, the event-triggered control problem for a class of nonlinear
systems with disturbance will be concerned, which is also a focus in modern control theory.
26 W. Liu, J. Lu and S. Xu et al. / Applied Mathematics and Computation 360 (2019) 14–27

Acknowledgments

This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (61803208, 61673169, 61374087), the Natural
Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (BK20180726), Natural Science Research Project of Jiangsu Higher Education Institu-
tions (18KJB120 0 05), and Research Start Fund of Nanjing Normal University (184080H202B140), 333 Project BRA2017380.

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