Exponential Delay Dependent
Stabilization for Time-Varying Delay
Systems With Saturating
Actuator
Pin-Lin Liu
Associate Professor
Department of Electrical Engineering,
Chienkuo Technology University,
Changhua,
500 Taiwan, R.O.C.
This paper deals with the stabilization criteria for a class of time-
varying delay systems with saturating actuator. Based on the
Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional combining with linear matrix in-
equality techniques and Leibniz–Newton formula, delay-
dependent stabilization criteria are derived using a state feedback
controller. We also consider efficient convex optimization algo-
rithms to the time-varying delay system with saturating actuator
case: the maximal bound on the time delay such that the pre-
scribed level of operation range and imposed exponential stability
requirements are still preserved. The value of the time-delay as
well as its rate of change are taken into account in the design
method presented and further permit us to reduce the conserva-
tiveness of the approach. The results have been illustrated by
given numerical examples. These results are shown to be less
conservative than those reported in the literature.
关DOI: 10.1115/1.4002713兴
Keywords: Leibniz–Newton formula, linear matrix inequality,
time delay, delay-dependence
1 Introduction
Both time-delay and saturating controls are commonly encoun-
tered in various engineering systems and are frequently a source
of instability. Stability analysis and synthesis of time-delay sys-
tems are important issues addressed by many authors, and some
mature methods have been widely used to deal with these prob-
lems 关1–22兴. Many methods to check the stability of time-delay
systems 关1,7,8,13,16,22兴or linear systems with saturating controls
have been proposed 关2–6,9–12,15,17–21兴.Nonlinear systems with
time-delay constitute basic mathematical models of real phenom-
ena, for instance, in circuits theory, economics, and mechanics.
Not only dynamical systems with time-delay are common in
chemical processes and long transmission lines in pneumatic, hy-
draulic, or rolling mill systems, but computer controlled systems
requiring numerical computation also have time delays in control
loops. The presence of time delays in control loops usually de-
grades system performance and complicates the analysis and de-
sign of feedback controllers. Actuator saturation and time delays
are often observed together in control systems. To deal with both
problems effectively, appropriate design methods are required. Up
to now, only a few methods were reported to deal with these
problems simultaneously. Cao et al. 关2兴considered the design of
the antiwindup gain for further enlargement of the closed-loop
stability region. Unlike in the design of feedback gain by Hu et al.
关6兴, the design of antiwindup gain by Cao et al. 关2兴cannot be
formulated into a linear matrix inequality 共LMI兲optimization
problem. Chen and Wang 关3兴studied the stabilization problem of
saturating a time-delay system with state feedback and sampled-
state feedback and they derived several sufficient conditions to
ensure the system stability in terms of norm inequalities. Chou et
al. 关4兴exploited a sufficient condition to stabilize a linear uncer-
tain time delay system containing input saturation. The problem of
robust stabilization of uncertain time delay systems containing a
saturating actuator was addressed by Niculescu et al. 关14兴by a
high gain approach. Oucheriah 关15兴considered a method to syn-
thesize a globally stabilizing state feedback controller by means of
an asymptotic observer for time-delay systems. In Ref. 关18兴,a
dynamic antiwindup method was presented for the systems with
input delay and saturation. In Ref. 关13兴, a LMI-based approach is
proposed to analyze the stability and domain of attraction for sys-
tems with exponential stability.
Recently, increasing attention has been paid to the study of the
stability of systems with both time-delay and saturating actuator
because of its practical usefulness 关2–6,9–12,15,17–20兴. The sta-
bility problem of time-delay systems with a saturating actuator
has been proposed that are based on the matrix norm or matrix
measure 关3–5,9–12,14,17,18,21兴. Unfortunately, matrix norm and
matrix measure operations usually render the criteria more con-
servative. Therefore, recently, a new stability criterion based on
the LMI techniques was proposed 关2,19,20兴. However, the stabil-
ity analyses of the operators are still based on matrix norm ma-
nipulations, which may lead to conservative results. Considering a
Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional, a synthesis technique based
upon LMIs was used to determine simultaneously a robust stabi-
lizing state feedback and a set of admissible conditions from
which the resulting trajectories are asymptotically stable when the
saturation effectively occurs. This work concerns both the design
of stabilizing controllers and the determination of the associated
domains of safe initial conditions for linear systems with state
delay and saturating controls. The method used is based on the
Lyapunov–Krasovskii approach 关2,19兴. The synthesis of both a
suitable gain matrix and an associated set of initial conditions is
carried out by LMIs 关1兴. A convex optimization problem is then
proposed in order to maximize the size of the set of admissible
initial conditions 关13兴. However, in the control of a time-varying
delay system with saturating actuator, it is usually desirable to
design a controller, which not only robustly stabilizes the system
but also estimates the bound of delay time hto keep the stabil-
ilization of the system. Furthermore, the results are somewhat
conservative, especially in situations where delays are small; there
is room for investigation.
This paper deals with the robust stabilization criteria for a class
of time-varying delay systems with a saturating actuator. Based on
the Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional combining with LMI tech-
niques and the Leibniz–Newton formula, delay-dependent stabili-
zation criteria are derived using a state feedback controller. We
also consider an optimization particular to the time-varying delay
system with a saturating actuator case: the maximal bound on the
time delay such that the prescribed level of operation range and
imposed exponential stability requirements are still preserved. The
designed controller is dependent on the time delay and its rate of
change. From the illustrated examples, if the delay time lengthens,
the decay rate becomes conservative. We claim that the sharpness
of the upper bound delay time hvaries with the chosen decay rate

. The results have been illustrated by the given numerical ex-
amples. These results are shown to be less conservative than those
reported in the literature.
2 Main Result
Consider the following time-varying delay systems with a satu-
rating actuator described by
x
˙共t兲=A0x共t兲+A1x共t−h共t兲兲 +Bsat共u共t兲兲 共1a兲
Contributed by the Dynamic Systems Division of ASME for publication in the
JOURNAL OF DYNAMIC SYSTEMS,MEASUREMENT,AND CONTROL. Manuscript received
April 13, 2009; final manuscript received February 23, 2010; published online
November 23, 2010. Assoc. Editor: Guoming George Zhu.
Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement, and Control JANUARY 2011, Vol. 133 / 014502-1
Copyright © 2011 by ASME
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