In this paper, we consider the relation between the switching dwell time and the stabilization of switched linear control systems. First of all, a concept of critical dwell time is given for switched linear systems without control inputs, and the critical dwell time is taken as an arbitrary given positive constant for a switched linear control systems with controllable switching models. Secondly, when a switched linear system has many stabilizable switching models, the problem of stabilization of the overall system is considered. An on-line feedback control is designed such that the overall system is asymptotically stabilizable under switching laws which depend only on those of uncontrollable subsystems of the switching models. Finally, when a switched system is partially controllable （While some switching models are probably unstabilizable）, an on-line feedback control and a cyclic switching strategy are designed such that the overall system is asymptotically stabilizable if all switching models of this uncontrollable subsystems are asymptotically stable. In addition, algorithms for designing switching laws and controls are presented.
In this paper, we investigate a class of affine nonlinear systems with a triangular-like structure and present its necessary and sufficient condition for global controllability, by using the techniques developed by Sun Yimin and Guo Lei recently. Furthermore, we will give two examples to illustrate its application.
This paper asks a new question： how can we control the collective behavior of self-organized multi-agent systems？ We try to answer the question by proposing a new notion called ＇Soft Control＇ which keeps the local rule of the existing agents in the system. We show the feasibility of soft control by a case study. Consider the simple but typical distributed multi-agent model proposed by Vicsek et al. for flocking of birds： each agent moves with the same speed but with different headings which are updated using a local rule based on the average of its own heading and the headings of its neighbors. Most studies of this model are about the self-organized collective behavior, such as synchronization of headings. We want to intervene in the collective behavior （headings） of the group by soft control. A specified method is to add a special agent, called a ＇Shill＇, which can be controlled by us but is treated as an ordinary agent by other agents. We construct a control law for the shill so that it can synchronize the whole group to an objective heading. This control law is proved to be effective analytically and numerieally. Note that soft control is different from the approach of distributed control. It is a natural way to intervene in the distributed systems. It may bring out many interesting issues and challenges on the control of complex systems.
Most of existing methods in system identification with possible exception of those for linear systems are off-line in nature, and hence are nonrecursive. This paper demonstrates the recent progress in recursive system identification. The recursive identification algorithms are presented not only for linear systems （multivariate ARMAX systems） but also for nonlinear systems such as the Hammerstein and Wiener systems, and the nonlinear ARX systems. The estimates generated by the algorithms are online updated and converge a.s. to the true values as time tends to infinity.
This paper is concerned with the stabilization problem of switched linear stochastic systems with unobservable switching laws. In this paper the system switches among a finite family of linear stochastic systems. Since there are noise perturbations, the switching laws can not be identified in any finite time horizon. We prove that if each individual subsystem is controllable and the switching duration uniformly has a strict positive lower bound, then the system can be stabilized by using a controller that uses online state estimation.
