Stabilization of nonlinear systems using state-feedback periodic event-triggered controllers

We investigate the scenario where a controller communicates with a plant at discrete time instants generated by an event-triggering mechanism. In particular, the latter collects sampled data from the plant and the controller at each sampling instant, and then decides whether the control input needs to be updated, leading to periodic event-triggered control (PETC). In this paper, we propose a systematic design procedure for PETC that stabilize general nonlinear systems. The design is based on the existence of a continuous-time state feedback controller, which stabilizes the system in the absence of communication constraints. We then take into account the sampling and we design an event-triggering condition, which is only updated at some of the sampling instants, to preserve stability. An explicit bound on the maximum sampling period with which the triggering rule is evaluated is provided. We show that there exists a trade-off between the latter and a parameter used to define the triggering condition. The results are applied to a van de Pol oscillator as an illustration.