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The control of a mosquito population using the sterile insect technique is considered. Building on a model-based approach, where the control input is the release rate of sterilized males, we propose a non-negative backstepping control law capable of globally stabilizing the extinction equilibrium of the system. A simulation study supports and validates the theoretical findings, showing the efficacy of the approach both on a reduced model, used for control design, and on a complete model of the mosquito population dynamics.

The problem of estimating the reaction coefficient of a system governed by a reaction-diffusion partial differential equation is tackled. An estimator relying on boundary measurements only is proposed. The estimator is based upon a setpoint regulation strategy and leads to an asymptotically converging estimate of the unknown reaction coefficient. The proposed estimator is combined with a state observer and shown to provide an asymptotic estimate of the actual system state. A numerical example supports and illustrates the theoretical results.

The problem of unknown input observer design is considered for coupled PDE/ODE systems subject to incremental sector bounded nonlinearities and unknown boundary inputs. Assuming available measurements at the boundary of the distributed domain, the synthesis of the unknown input observer is based on Lyapunov methods and convex optimization. Numerical simulations support and confirm the theoretical findings, illustrating the robust estimation performances of the proposed nonlinear unknown input observer., Comment: Extended version of the paper to appear in the IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control

In this letter, we study the leader-synchronization problem for a class of partial differential equations with boundary control and in-domain coupling. We describe the problem in an abstract formulation and we specialize it to a network of parabolic partial differential equations. We consider a setting in which a subset of the followers is connected to the leader through a boundary control, while interconnections among the followers are enforced by distributed in-domain couplings. Sufficient conditions in the form of matrix inequalities for the selection of the control parameters enforcing exponential synchronization are given. Numerical simulations illustrate and corroborate the theoretical findings., Comment: V1 matches published version

This paper investigates the design of reduced-order observers for robotic manipulators. Observer stability conditions are obtained based on a Lyapunov analysis and the proposed observer is enhanced with a hybrid scheme that may adjust the gains to cope with possible unbounded velocities of the robot joints. Thanks to such hybrid strategy, the observer works accurately both for robots driven by open-loop controllers and by output feedback controllers. Numerical simulations illustrate the efficacy of the reduced-order observer in several scenarios, including a comparison with the performances of a classical full-order observer.

In this paper, the behavior of scalar multi-agent systems over networks subject to time-driven jumps. Assuming that all agents communicate through distinct communication digraphs at jump and flow times, the asymptotic multi-consensus behavior of the hybrid network is explicitly characterized. The hybrid multi-consensus is shown to be associated with a suitable partition that is almost equitable for both the jump and flow communication digraphs. In doing so, no assumption on the underlying digraphs is introduced. Finally, the coupling rules making the multi-consensus subspace attractive are established. Several simulation examples illustrate the theoretical results., Comment: Nonlinear Analysis: Hybrid Systems, Elsevier, In press

The problem of state estimation for a system of coupled hyperbolic PDEs and ODEs with Lipschitz nonlinearities with boundary measurements is considered. An infinite dimensional observer with a linear boundary injection term is used to solve the state estimation problem. The interconnection of the observer and the system is written in estimation error coordinates and analyzed as an abstract dynamical system. The observer is designed to achieve global exponential stability of estimation error with respect to a suitable norm. Sufficient conditions in the form of matrix inequalities are proposed to design the observer. Numerical simulations support and corroborate the theoretical results., Comment: This version fixes a few minor typos and proposes a clearer proof sketch for Proposition 1

The problem of stabilization of a system of coupled PDEs of the forth-order by means of boundary control is investigated. The considered setup arises from the classical Euler-Bernoulli beam model, and constitutes a generalization of flexible mechanical systems. A linear feedback controller is proposed, and using an abstract formulation based on operator semigroup theory, we are able to prove the well-posedness and the stability of the closed-loop system. The performances of the proposed controller are illustrated by means of numerical simulations.

This paper focuses on the use of unknown input observers for detection and isolation of actuator and effector faults with control reconfiguration in overactuated systems. The control allocation actively uses input redundancy in order to make relevant faults observable. The case study of an overactuated marine vessel supports theoretical developments.