BARBALATS LEMMA

HAO LIU

Usually it is dicult to nd the asymptotic stability of time-varying systems because it is very dicult to nd Liapunov functions with a negative denite derivative. We know in case of autonomous (time invariant) systems, if V is negative semi-denite, then it is possible to know the asymptotic behaviors by invoking invariant-set theorems. However, the exibility is not available for time-varying systems. This is where Babarlats lemma comes into picture. 0.1. Lemma. Lemma 0.1. Barbalats Lemma: Suppose f (t) C 1 (a, ) and limt f (t) = where < . If f is uniformly continuous, then limt f (t) = 0. Proof. Well prove the result by contradiction. Suppose limt f (t) = 0. Then > 0 and a monotone increasing sequence {tn } such that tn as n and |f (tn )| for all n N. Since f (t) is uniformly continuous, for such , > 0 such that n N |t tn | < |f (t) f (tn )| . 2 Hence if t [tn , tn + ] then |f (t)| = |f (tn ) (f (tn ) f (t))| |f (tn )| |f (tn ) f (t)| 2 = . 2
Date: November 24, 2009. Key words and phrases. Barbalats Lemma.
1

HAO LIU

Then since f (t) C 1 , we have

tn + tn tn +

|
a

f (t)dt
a

f (t)dt| = |
tn tn +

f (t)dt| |f (t)|dt
tn tn +

tn

dt 2

= > 0. 2 However
tn + t tn

lim |
a

f (t)dt
a

f (t)dt| = lim |f (tn + ) f (tn )|

t

= | lim f (tn + ) lim | f (tn )|

t t

= || || = 0. This is a contradiction. Therefore limt f (t) = 0. 0.2. Application of the Lemma. 1 Consider the non-autonomous system: e = e + g w(t) g = e w(t). This is a non-autonomous system because the input w(t) is a function of time. Assume w(t) is bounded. Consider V = e2 + g 2 . Then V = 2e2 0. What this means is that V (t) V (0), so e, g are bounded. But this says nothing about e converging to 0 as t goes to innity. Whats worse, since this is a time-varying system, we cannot use invariance set theorem. However, by Barbalats lemma, we notice that V = 4e(e+g w(t)). Since e, g, w(t) are all bounded. Then V is bounded. Hence equivalently V is uniformly continous, combined with the fact V is bounded from below and V is negative semi-denite, then it infers that V = 2e2 0 as t .

1Adapted

from page 125 of Slotine and Lis book Applied Nonlinear Control.