Cyclic-small-gain method for distributed nonlinear control

Abstract

Distributed control has attracted considerable attention from control and other scientific communities. Complex nonlinear uncertain dynamics is ubiquitous in control systems, and the distributed control for this kind of systems has not been fully studied. One fundamental problem is caused by the coexistence of constraints on information exchange and complex nonlinear dynamics in distributed control systems. The cyclic-small-gain methods have recently shown to be a powerful tool for the design of distributed nonlinear controllers. This paper reviews the main results on the cyclic-small-gain methods for distributed control, and pinpoints several directions for future research.