Control of T-S Fuzzy Systems Using Fuzzy Weighting-Dependent Lyapunov Function

Over the past two decades, there has been a rapidly growing interest in approximating a nonlinear system by a Takagi-Sugeno (T-S) fuzzy model (Takagi & Sugeno, 1985). In general, this model is represented by using a set of fuzzy rules to describe a global nonlinear system in terms of a set of local linear models which are smoothly connected by fuzzy membership functions. Based on the T-S fuzzy model, recently, various fuzzy controllers have been developed under the so-called parallel-distributed compensation (PDC) scheme (in which each control rule is distributively designed for the corresponding rule of a T-S fuzzy model) and have been widely and successfully applied in fields ranging from aerospace to process control. The reason is because the fuzzy model-based control method provides a natural, simple and effective design approach to complement other nonlinear control techniques that require special and rather involved knowledge. Below are listed the main features of T-S model-based fuzzy control method: 1. It does not require severe structural assumptions on the plant model. 2. It preserves well-understood linear intuition. 3. It is naturally compatible with decompositions of the overall control problem. The decompositions are typically not hierarchical, and the interactions of sub-problems are captured by physical variables that are typically state variables in a more complete model of the overall system. 4. It enables control systems to respond rapidly to changing operating conditions. For this reason, it is important that the selected physical variables reflect changes in plant dynamics as operating conditions change. In fact, the T-S model-based fuzzy control method (of divide and conquer type) constructs a nonlinear controller, with certain required dynamic properties, by combining, in some sense, the members of appropriate family of linear time-invariant controllers. Here, nonlinear control design task is broken into a number of linear sub-problems, which enable linear design methods to be applied to nonlinear problems. Within the general framework of the T-S fuzzy model-based control method, a flurry of research activities have quickly yielded many important results on the design of fuzzy control systems by means of the following Lyapunov function approaches: 1. Common quadratic Lyapunov function approach (Tanaka & Sugeno, 1992; Tanaka et al, 1996; Wang et al, 1996; Cao & Frank, 2000; Assawinchaichote, 2004).