Semi-global stabilization of parabolic PDE–ODE systems with input saturation

This paper addresses the semi-global stabilization problem of parabolic PDE–ODE systems with input saturation. Two low-gain controllers are proposed for two types of systems. It is shown that the proposed controllers can solve the semi-global stabilization problem of the concerned parabolic PDE–ODE systems with input saturation. Distributed-diffusion, counter-convection and Robin boundary condition are simultaneously considered. Moreover, the controllability of PDE–ODE systems with input saturation is discussed. It is shown that semi-global stabilization is impossible if the open-loop ODE system is exponentially unstable, which is another distinctive contribution of this work. Two illustrative examples are given to show the effectiveness of our proposed low-gain controllers.