Robust control design of a class of nonlinear input- and state-constrained systems

This work focuses on control design for input-output feedback linearizable nonlinear systems with bounded inputs and state constraints in the presence of uncertainty. Controllers based on Lyapunov's direct method have been synthesized before for this class of nonlinear systems to enforce asymptotic stability in the presence of bounded inputs. However, none of these controllers accounts explicitly for state constraints. In order to address this task, we propose an optimization-based design method for which two properties will be guaranteed simultaneously despite parametric uncertainty, namely, closed-loop stability with bounded inputs and feasibility of the transient in the presence of state constraints. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.