Decentralized Control for Large-Scale Interconnected Nonlinear Systems Based on Barrier Lyapunov Function

We present a novel decentralized tracking control scheme for a class of large-scale nonlinear systems with partial state constraints. For the first time, backstepping design with the newly proposed BLF is incorporated to effectively deal with the control problem of nonlinear systems with interconnected constraints. To prevent the states of each subsystem from violating the constraints, we employ a special barrier Lyapunov function (BLF), which grows to infinity whenever its argument approaches some finite limits. By ensuring boundedness of the barrier Lyapunov function in the closed loop, we ensure that those limits are not transgressed. Asymptotic tracking is achieved without violation of the constraints, and all closed-loop signals remain bounded. In the end, an illustrative example is presented to demonstrate the performance of the proposed control.