Short Communication

International Journal of Advanced

Robotic Systems
November-December 2016: 1–9
Event-triggered control of spatially ª The Author(s) 2016
DOI: 10.1177/1729881416675138
distributed processes via unmanned arx.sagepub.com

aerial vehicle

Xuyang Lou and Zhengxian Jiang

Abstract
This article concerns the problem of event-triggered observer-based output feedback control of spatially distributed
processes under the autonomous operation of an unmanned aerial vehicle. The specific spatially distributed process is
modeled within the distributed parameter systems framework. To control the considered distributed parameter system
efficiently, we first estimate the states with an observer based on the measurement information from sensors. Then, an
event-triggered observer-based controller is designed, which can reduce the frequency of signal transmissions between
the observer and the controller. In contrast to normal sampled-data controller that is updated periodically, the event-
triggered controller is updated only when an ‘‘event’’ happens. Moreover, the Zeno behavior is also excluded by proving
there exists a lower bound for interexecution time. Numerical simulations are finally presented to illustrate the effec-
tiveness of the proposed control method.

Keywords
Unmanned aerial vehicle, event-triggered control, distributed parameter system, observer

Date received: 9 July 2016; accepted: 14 September 2016

Topic: Special Issue - Intelligent Flight Control for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
Topic Editor: Mou Chen

Introduction adaptive output feedback synthesis approach to design

reduced order controllers for a large-scale discretized sys-
Over the past few years, research on sensor networks have
tem of DPSs. For spatially varying processes, Demetriou9
attracted increasing attention from many researchers in
provided an adaptive scheme to design spatially distributed
control fields.1–3 In particular, estimation and control in
consensus filters that can eliminate the disagreement
sensor networks are of significant importance and have
among themselves in a sensor network. While the control
received many attempts.2,4,5 Note that the available tech-
goals in the above contributions were achieved via contin-
niques are suitable for finite dimensional systems, which
uous communication, intermittent communication at sam-
are modeled by ordinary differential equations. However, pling instants is more realistic due to computational
many engineering systems belong to spatially distributed
controller realization.12 Recently, in contrast to such peri-
processes with states evolving along both time and space,
odically sampled control schemes, event-triggered control
which are commonly described by distributed parameter
systems (DPSs).6
Many works on DPSs have been done based on different
control methods.6–11 In the study by Kim and Bentsman,7 Institute of System Engineering, Jiangnan University, Wuxi, China
two robust control laws were employed to stabilize a class
Corresponding author:
of DPSs with spatially varying parameters and distributed Xuyang Lou, Institute of System Engineering, Jiangnan University, Wuxi
sensing and actuation to encompass disturbance rejection 214122, China.
capability were explored. King et al. 8 addressed an Email: Louxy@jiangnan.edu.cn

Creative Commons CC-BY: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License
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open-access-at-sage).
2 International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems

(EC) has become hot research topics and drawn consider- wðt; 0Þ ¼ wðt; lÞ ¼ 0 and the initial condition is
able attention,13–16 because it may allow to significantly wð0; xÞ ¼ w 0 ðxÞ 2 L2 ðÞ. The functions bðx; xa ðtÞÞ and
reduce the usage of the communication channel. For uðtÞ denote the spatial distribution and the control input
instance, distributed event-based control approaches have of the UAV, respectively, where xa ðtÞ denotes the loca-
been successfully applied to analyze and design coopera- tion of the mobile UAV.
tive controllers in multiagent systems.17–19 The spatial distribution bðx; xa ðtÞÞ is assumed to be
Compared to time-triggered periodic control, the EC 
1 if x 2 ½xa ðtÞ  "; xa ðtÞ þ "
possesses the prominent advantage of reducing communi- bðx; xa ðtÞÞ ¼ (2)
cations.13 The important technology of sensor/actuator net- 0 otherwise
works, consisting of flight vehicles 20,21 or mobile where xa ðtÞ and " > 0 are the position and the spatial sup-
agents,18,19 provides radically new communication and net- port of the mobile UAV, respectively.
working paradigms with many new application.22 Never- The measurement output on the DPS (1) is given by
theless, most of the achievements focus on finite
2 ðl 3
dimensional dynamical systems, the mathematical models 2 3 s
of which are expressed by the ordinary differential equa- y 1 ðtÞ 6 cðx; x 1 ðtÞÞwðt; xÞ dx 7
6 0 7
tions, while research on the problem of EC for DPSs with 6 7 6 7
6 .. 7 6 . 7
guidance of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or mobile yðtÞ ¼ 6 . 7 ¼ 6 .. 7 (3)
4 5 6 7
actuators are rare. 6 ðl 7
ym ðtÞ 4 5
The primary goal of this article is to discuss the esti- cðx; xsm ðtÞÞwðt; xÞ dx
mation and control problem in spatially distributed pro- 0
cesses under the autonomous operation of a UAV and where cðx; xsi ðtÞÞ, i¼ 1; 2; . . . ; m denotes the sensor spatial
handle the problem through an event-triggered observer- distribution defined by
based output feedback control strategy providing addi- 
tional flexibility and improvement in communication. s 1 if x 2 ½xsi ðtÞ  ; xsi ðtÞ þ 
cðx; xi ðtÞÞ ¼ (4)
An observer through the UAV is designed to estimate the 0 otherwise
states of the DPSs. Based on the state estimates, an event-
trigger condition is provided to determine when the con- where xsi ðtÞ denotes the position of the i th sensor and  > 0
trol information can be transferred to the actuator. To is the spatial support of the i th sensor.
analyze whether the estimation error is asymptotically It is convenient to bring the aforementioned systems (1)
convergent or not, a proper Lyapunov function is con- and (3) in an abstract framework. Let X ¼ L2 ðÞ be a
structed. Finally, the proposed control method is applied Hilbert space with the inner product h; i and correspond-
to a spatially distributed process described by one- ing induced norm j  j. The reflexive Banach space V with
dimensional partial differential equation through com- norm denoted by k  k is identified by the Sobolev
puter simulations. space V ¼ H01 ¼ f 2 H 1 ðÞj ð0Þ ¼ ðlÞ ¼ 0g, where
This article is organized as follows. In the second sec- V  ¼ H 1 ðÞ denotes the conjugate dual of V with induced
tion, we give the mathematical framework for DPSs. The norm k k . It follows that V°X °V  with both embedding
third section serves to derive the designed observer and dense and continuously, and as a consequence, we have
event-triggered controller. The fourth section gives the glo- jj  p k  k;  2 V, for some positive constant p.23,24
bal uniform ultimate boundedness and minimum interevent Using the representation, the parabolic operator A asso-
time (MIEI). The fifth section addresses numerical simula- ciated with (1) is given by24
tions where the proposed control method is compared to the d 2
normal sampled-data control (SC), and finally, conclusion A ¼ a1  a2 ;  2 DomðAÞ (5)
dx 2
remarks are given in the last section.
where
0
Mathematical formulation DomðAÞ ¼ f 2 L2 ðÞ j ; absolutely continuous;
Consider a diffusion process modeled by a parabolic DPS, and ð0Þ ¼ ðlÞ ¼ 0g:
given by
Following the study by Demetriou10 and Demetriou and
@wðt; xÞ @ 2w Hussein,23 the operator A satisfies
¼ a 1 2 ðt; xÞ  a 2 wðt; xÞ þ bðx; xa ðtÞÞuðtÞ (1)
@t @x jhA; ’ij   k  kk ’ k
where a 1 ; a2 > 0, t 2 ½0; 1Þ and x 2  denote the time
and
variable and the spatial variable, respectively.
 ¼ ½0; l⊂R represents the bounded interval and hA; i  a 1 k k2
wðt; xÞ 2 R is the state of the system. It is assumed
that the Dirichlet boundary value conditions are for ; ’ 2 V, where  ¼ a1 þ a2 p2 .
Lou and Jiang 3

The input operator Bðxa ðtÞÞ 2 LðR; V  Þ is defined by

UAV
ðl
a Event wˆ (tk )
hBðx ðtÞÞuðtÞ; i ¼ bðx; xa ðtÞÞðxÞuðtÞ dx Controller
0 detector
or
wˆ (t ) ZOH
Bðxa ðtÞÞuðtÞ ¼ bðx; xa ðtÞÞuðtÞ u
Similarly, the output operator C 2 LðV; R Þ is defined by
m
Observer Actuator
2 ðl 3
s
6 cðx; x 1 ðtÞÞðxÞ’ðxÞ dx 7
6 0 7
6 7
hC; ’i ¼ 6 6
.. 7
7
6 ðl . 7
4 5
cðx; xsm ðtÞÞðxÞ’ðxÞ dx
0
y1 y2 y3
Then, the evolution equation of DPS (1) with (3) can be
sensor sensor sensor
rewritten as DPS

_ ¼ AwðtÞ þ Bðxa ðtÞÞuðtÞ

wðtÞ
(6) Figure 1. The structure of the event-triggered control scheme.
yðtÞ ¼ CwðtÞ
DPS: distributed parameter system; UAV: unmanned aerial vehi-
cle; ZOH: zero-order holder.

State estimation process and event- Based on the observer states, the EC input is designed as
triggered controller
^ k Þ;
uðtÞ ¼ Kwðt t 2 ½tk ; tkþ1 Þ (9)
The estimation of spatially distributed processes is
achieved by a UAV gathering information from m sensors. for k 2 f1; 2; . . . 1g; where K is the controller gain oper-
We design a Luenberger observer as follows ^ k Þ is the estimated state or the sampled observer
ator and wðt
state.
^_ ðtÞ ¼ AwðtÞ
w ^ þ Bðxa ðtÞÞuðtÞ þ LðyðtÞ  y^ðtÞÞ;
(7)
^
wð0Þ 6¼ w 0 ; Assumption 2. There exists a bounded operator K such that
2  1 > 0, where  is the minimum eigenvalue of
where y^ðtÞ ¼ CwðtÞ
^ and L is the observer gain that is taken
A þ Bðxa ðtÞÞK.
as L ¼ rC in this article, where C is the adjoint of the
output operator C and r is a positive constant. Assumption 3. Suppose that   jBðxa ðtÞÞKj 2 > 0, where 
Assumption 1. There exists a bounded operator L such that is the minimum eigenvalue of A þ rC C, where r is
A  LC generates a C0 -semigroup. defined in (7).
For simplicity, the operator K ¼ B ðxa ðtÞÞ is consid-
Remark 1. With the help of the observability condition ered in this article, where  > 0 is a constant and B ðxa ðtÞÞ
in assumption 1, the well posedness of (7) can be is the adjoint of the operator Bðxa ðtÞÞ.
established using the fact that A  LC generates a This work aims to determine an MIEI T min and improve
C0 -semigroup. the estimation and control performance with guaranteed
Next, we introduce an event-triggered observer-based stability property.
control scheme whose structure is depicted in Figure 1.
The event-triggered threshold is monitored by event
detector that determines when to transmit the newest Main results
state estimates from the observer to the controller. Spe-
cifically, let ftk g1
k¼0 be the time instants when an event
Define the estimation error eðtÞ ¼ wðtÞ  wðtÞ.
^ Then, the
happens with tk < tkþ1 . The next instant tkþ1 is deter- error system is given by
mined by _ ¼ ðA  rC CÞeðtÞ
eðtÞ
(10)
eð0Þ ¼ wð0Þ  wð0Þ
^ 6¼ 0
tkþ1 ¼ inf ft > tk j jwðtÞ
^  wðt
^ k Þj  eg (8)
within the time period t 2 ½tk ; tkþ1 Þ.
^ k Þ denotes the esti-
for all k 2 f1; 2; . . . g; where wðt
mated states sampled at time tk and e is the event Theorem 1. Consider the DPS (1) and its observer (7) with
threshold. sampling instants determined by (8). Suppose that
4 International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems

assumptions 1 and 3 hold, then, the estimation error eðtÞ of Correspondingly, the state observer (7) can be derived as
the error system (10) is globally convergent, that is
^_ ¼ ðA  Bðxa ðtÞÞKÞwðtÞ
wðtÞ eðtÞ þ rC CeðtÞ
^ þ Bðxa ðtÞÞK^
lim jeðtÞj ¼ 0 (11) (17)
t!1

^ xÞ ¼ w
with the initial condition wð0; ^ 0 ðxÞ 2 L2 ðÞ for
Proof. Consider a Lyapunov function t 2 ½tk ; tkþ1 Þ.
The following theorem shows the global uniform ulti-
V ðtÞ ¼ heðtÞ; ðA þ rC CÞeðtÞi mate boundedness of the states of the system (1).
Then, the time derivative of V ðtÞ for t 2 ½tk ; tkþ1 Þ along
with (10) gives Theorem 2. Consider the DPS (1) with the event-triggered
controller (9) and its observer (7) with sampling instants
V_ ðtÞ ¼ 2heðtÞ;
_ ðA þ rC CÞeðtÞi determined by (8). Suppose that assumptions 1–3 hold, then
¼ 2jðA  rC CÞeðtÞj 2  2jeðtÞj 2 (12) the states of the system (1) are globally uniformly ulti-
mately bounded, that is
where the condition in assumption 3 is used. Then, it fol- sffiffiffiffi
lows that 
lim jwðtÞj  (18)
lim jeðtÞj ¼ 0 (13)
t!1 
t!1
where  ¼ minf2  1; 2  2jBðxa ðtÞÞKj 2 g and
This completes the proof. c  ¼ 2jBðx ðtÞÞKj 2 e2 .
 a
With the control input (9), the actuator in UAV is
utilized to control the DPS. In this paper, the actuator Proof. Consider a Lyapunov function
and controller are assumed to be collocated and the
actuator motion is also event-triggered. When the con- V ðtÞ ¼ hwðtÞ; wðtÞi þ heðtÞ; eðtÞi
troller receives the observer states at time instance tk , it The time derivative of V ðtÞ for t 2 ½tk ; tkþ1 Þ gives
can compute the position where the UAV should move
to. Let xa ðtÞ be the actuator position, then V_ ðtÞ ¼ 2hwðtÞ;
_ wðtÞi þ 2heðtÞ;
_ eðtÞi
xa ðtÞ ¼ xa ðtk Þ; t 2 ½tk ; tkþ1 Þ. At the time instances tk , the ¼ 2hðA  Bðxa ðtÞÞKÞwðtÞ þ Bðxa ðtÞÞKeðtÞ
desired actuator position is
eðtÞ; wðtÞi þ 2hðA  rC CÞeðtÞ; eðtÞi
þ Bðxa ðtÞÞK^
xa ðtk Þ ¼ arg max jwðt
^ k ; xÞj (14) ¼ 2hðA  Bðxa ðtÞÞKÞwðtÞ; wðtÞi þ 2hBðxa ðtÞÞKeðtÞ
x2
eðtÞ; wðtÞi þ 2hðA  rC CÞeðtÞ; eðtÞi
þ Bðxa ðtÞÞK^
which gives the location over the domain  with the max-
imum value of the observer states. (19)
Using the inequality 2hx; yi  h x; xi þ hy; yi, we further
Remark 2. If the actuator is only allowed to move from its obtain
current position xa ðtk Þ with a maximum distance +h,
which means that the actuator moves only in V_ ðtÞ  2hðA  Bðxa ðtÞÞKÞwðtÞ; wðtÞi
½xa ðtk Þ  h; xa ðtk Þ þ h, the proposed actuator position is þ 2hðA  rC CÞeðtÞ; eðtÞi þ jBðxa ðtÞÞKeðtÞ
modified by
eðtÞj2 þ jwðtÞj2
þ Bðxa ðtÞÞK^
a
x ðtk Þ ¼ arg max jwðt
^ k ; xÞj (15) ⭐2hðA  Bðxa ðtÞÞKÞwðtÞ; wðtÞi
xa ðtk1 Þhxxa ðtk1 Þþh
þ 2hðA  rC CÞeðtÞ; eðtÞi
which finds the location of the maximum value of the
observer states over the domain ½xa ðtk1 Þ  h; þ 2jBðxa ðtÞÞKj 2 jeðtÞj2
xa ðtk1 Þ þ h and the actuator will move to the location. eðtÞj2 þ jwðtÞj2
þ 2jBðxa ðtÞÞKj 2 j^ (20)
Next, the stability of the controlled DPS (1) will be
analyzed. The closed-loop system under controller (9) is By assumptions 2 and 3, the positive definite operators
written as A þ Bðxa ðtÞÞK and A þ rC C satisfy

_ ¼ AwðtÞ  Bðxa ðtÞÞKwðt

wðtÞ ^ kÞ hðA þ Bðxa ðtÞÞKÞ’; ’i  h’; ’i; ’2V (21)
¼ ðA  Bðxa ðtÞÞKÞwðtÞ hðA þ rC CÞ; i  h; i; ’2V (22)
a a
þ Bðx ðtÞÞKeðtÞ þ Bðx ðtÞÞK^
eðtÞ (16)
where  and  are the minimum eigenvalues of
for t 2 ½tk ; tkþ1 Þ, where e^ðtÞ ¼ wðtÞ
^  wðt
^ k Þ. A þ Bðxa ðtÞÞK and A þ rC C, respectively.
Lou and Jiang 5

Combining (20), (21), and (22) yields

V_ ðtÞ  ð1  2ÞjwðtÞj2
þ 2ðjBðxa ðtÞÞKj 2  ÞjeðtÞj2
þ 2jBðxa ðtÞÞKj 2 j^
eðtÞj 2
ðjwðtÞj 2 þ jeðtÞj 2 Þ þ 2jBðxa ðtÞÞKj 2 j^
  eðtÞj2
where  ¼ minf2  1; 2  2jBðxa ðtÞÞKj 2 g.
Due to the event-triggered condition (8), j^eðtÞj2  e2
holds for all t 2 ½tk ; tkþ1 Þ, so we have

V_ ðtÞ   
V ðtÞ þ 
 ¼ 2jBðxa ðtÞÞKj 2 e2 . Applying the comparison
where 
25
lemma, it follows that
ðt
V ðtÞ  e V ð0Þ þ eðtsÞ ds
t  
0
 
 


V ð0Þ  et þ
t
¼e (23)

 

which implies that jwðtÞj2  V ðtÞ  e t V ð0Þ
 Þe
ð=  
 t  Þ. Therefore, we have
þ ð=
sffiffiffiffi

lim jwðtÞj  (24)
t!1 
The proof is completed. c
To exclude Zeno behavior, interevent times should be
lower bounded away from 0, which is ensured in the fol-
lowing theorem.

Theorem 3. For the sampling instants in (8), the MIEI

defined by
Tmin ¼ inf ftkþ1  tk g (25)
k2f1;2; ... g

is lower bounded. Figure 2. Space–time plots of the system state wðt; xÞ under two
schemes.
Proof. From the definition e^ðtÞ ¼ wðtÞ ^  wðt
^ k Þ, for any
k 2 f1; 2; . . . g and t 2 ½tk ; tkþ1 , we have
12
e^_ ðtÞ ¼ wðtÞ
^_ ^ k Þ þ rC CeðtÞ
^  Bðxa ðtÞÞKwðt
¼ AwðtÞ SC scheme
EC scheme
¼ AwðtÞ
^  Awðt ^ k Þ  Bðxa ðtÞÞKwðt
^ k Þ þ Awðt ^ kÞ 10

þ rC CeðtÞ ¼ A^eðtÞ þ rC CeðtÞ

8
þ ðA  Bðxa ðtÞÞKÞwðt
^ kÞ (26)
|w (t, x)|

with e^ðtk Þ ¼ 0. Then, the solution of (26) is given by 6

e^ðtÞ ¼ eAðttk Þ e^ðtk Þ

ðt 4

þ eAðtsÞ ðrC CeðsÞ þ ðA  Bðxa ðtÞÞKÞwðt

^ k ÞÞ ds
tk 2
ðt
¼ eAðtsÞ ðrC CeðsÞ þ ðA  Bðxa ðtÞÞKÞwðt
^ k ÞÞ ds
tk 0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
(27) t (s)
By theorem 1, limt!1 jeðtÞj ¼ 0. Then, there exists
e~ > 0 such that jeðtÞj  e~ for all t  tk . It follows that Figure 3. Evolution of the L 2 norm of the system state under two
schemes.
6 International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems

(a) t = 4 (b) t = 8
0.35 0.14

0.3 0.12

0.25 0.1
w (t, x)

w (t, x)
0.2 0.08

0.15 0.06

0.1 0.04

0.05 0.02

0 0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
x x
(c) t = 12 (d) t = 16
0.07 0.035

0.06 0.03

0.05 0.025
w (t, x)

w (t, x)
0.04 0.02

0.03 0.015

0.02 0.01

0.01 0.005

0 0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
x x

Figure 4. Spatial distributions of the system state wðt; xÞ at different time instances (EC scheme: blue line, SC scheme: red dashed line).
EC: event-triggered control; SC: sampled-data control.

ðt   ðT
j^
eðtÞj ¼ j eAðtsÞ rC CeðsÞ þ ðA  Bðxa ðtÞÞKÞwðt
^ k Þ ds Uðtk Þ jeA j d ¼ e (31)
tk 0
ðt  
 jeAðtsÞ j jrC Cj jeðsÞj þ jðA  Bðxa ðtÞÞKÞwðt
^ k Þj ds which implies that the MIEI T min (T min  T) is lower
tk
ðt   bounded. c
 jeAðtsÞ j jrC Cj e þ jðA  Bðxa ðtÞÞKÞwðt
^ k Þj ds
tk Remark 3. The results presented in theorems 1–3 are pro-
ðt vided for a diffusion process modeled by the parabolic DPS
¼ Uðtk Þ jeAðtsÞ j ds (1), but extensions to second-order DPSs are possible.11 In
tk
this work, the event detector is simply implemented by an
(28)
event-triggered threshold, but the proposed results can be
where Uðtk Þ ¼ jðA  Bðxa ðtÞÞKÞwðt ^ k Þj þ jrC Cj~
e. extended to the situation where different event detectors,
Denote T ¼ t  tk . Then, we have such as event-driven detector with exponentially decreas-
ðt ð tk þT ðT ing threshold15 and sampled-data event detector,16 are
jeAðtsÞ
j ds ¼ je Aðtk þTsÞ
j ds ¼ jeA j d (29) imposed.
tk tk 0

Combining (28) with (29) gives

ðT Numerical simulations
eðtÞj  Uðtk Þ jeA j d
j^ (30) The example to be presented in this section is a one-
0
dimensional DPS. Both of the results by using the EC
According to the event-triggered condition (8), when- scheme and the normal SC will be addressed. The dynamic
ever j^
eðtÞj  e, a new event will occur. Hence, there exists equation and the initial conditions are, respectively, as
a lower bound time T > 0 such that follows
Lou and Jiang 7

0.8
Event instants

0.6

0.4

0.2

0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
t (s)

Figure 5. Event instants.

8
>
> @wðt; xÞ @ 2w
>
> ¼ a1 2 ðt; xÞ  a2 wðt; xÞ þ bðx; xa ðtÞÞuðtÞ
< @t @x
>
> wðt; 0Þ ¼ wðt; 1Þ ¼ 0
>
>
: 2
wð0; xÞ ¼ sinð xÞex
(32)
where wðt; xÞ denotes the state of a spatially distributed
process with the spatial domain  :¼ ½0; 1. The constants
 1 ¼ 0:015 and  2 ¼ 0:02 are the parameters of the asso-
ciated operators. bðx; xa ðtÞÞ represents the spatial distribu-
tion of the UAV defined in (2) with " ¼ 0:03.
The measurement output is defined in (3) with m ¼ 3
sensors located in xs1 ¼ 0:2, xs2 ¼ 0:5, and xs3 ¼ 0:8,
respectively. It is assumed that the Luenberger observer
(7) satisfies the initial condition wð0; ^ xÞ ¼ 0 and the
observer gain operator L is given by L ¼ rC with ^ ðt; xÞ under
Figure 6. Space–time plots of the estimation state w
r ¼ 13. two schemes.
To apply the event-triggered controller (9), take  ¼ 3:5
and the event threshold value e ¼ 0:2 in the event-triggered illustrated through the spatial distributions of the system
condition (8). To perform the simulation, the finite state wðt; xÞ at different time instances as shown in
element method is used to simulate the system. An implicit Figure 4. Note that the 38 time instants when the
difference approximation scheme with 30 linear elements events occur for transmission in UAV are shown in
is applied to approximate the system (32) and the Figure 5, which is less than the number 200 of trans-
resulting system is simulated using the Matlab ODE solver missions using the SC. Space–time plots of the state
ode45 in the time interval ½0; 20. To show the advantage of ^ xÞ using the SC and EC schemes as
estimation wðt;
the EC scheme, we compare the results with the normal shown in Figure 6(a) and (b), respectively, which show
SC that is updated periodically with tk ¼ 0:1k. Under the that the EC scheme can significantly accelerate the
SC and EC schemes, space–time plots of the system convergence rate of estimation. Under the EC scheme,
state wðt; xÞ are depicted in Figure 2. In addition, Figure the evolution of the estimation error L2 norm jeðt; xÞj is
3 shows the evolution of the L2 norm of state, defined depicted in Figure 7, which shows the convergence of
sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
ð1 the error and implies that the state is well estimated. It
by jwðt; xÞj ¼ w2 ðt; xÞ dx. It is observed from Fig- is observed that the estimation error converges to zero,
0 which implies that the state is well estimated. Since the
ures 2 and 3 that the states for both cases can be stabi- control input does not affect the estimation error, the
lized. Moreover, the proposed EC scheme can improve evolution using the SC scheme is the same as that
the convergence performance, which can be further shown in Figure 7.
8 International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems
12
10
8 6.
|e(t, x)|
6 surements. Chinese Phys B 2015; 24(2): 020702.
4 class of adaptive control laws for distributed parameter
2
0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
t (s)
Figure 7. Evolution of the estimation error jeðt; xÞj.
Conclusions
In this proposed EC approach for a class of parabolic DPSs,
sensor nodes are located in fixed positions, which are able
to measure the output of the system. An event-trigged
observer-based control strategy for estimating the state and
improving the control performance has been provided.
Furthermore, the stability of the closed-loop system is
ensured and the MIEI has been analyzed. Finally, an exam-
ple has been given to corroborate the theoretical results.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with
respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support
for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This
work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of
China (61473136) the Fundamental Research Funds for the Cen-
tral Universities (JUSRP51322B) and the 111 Project (B12018).
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