In this paper, we devise three day-to-day (DTD) road pricing schemes from their static counterparts to achieve several traffic management objectives such as regulating the traffic dynamics to the desired equilibrium, traffic restraint control, and balancing the fairness and efficiency of traffic networks, respectively. Qualitative analyses involved in the stability and convergence analysis as well as the DTD evolution of network performance admit challenges ranging from partial state stability, multiple equilibria, non-measurable system states to complex nonlinear network performance functionals. To handle these hurdles, we establish a unified stability analysis framework for qualitative analysis and control synthesis of continuous-time DTD traffic dynamics via the notion of output stability. Under this framework, by devising a proper measurable output function for the DTD dynamics in question, we can perform the relevant qualitative analyses for several continuous-time DTD traffic dynamics under different traffic control measures. For example, we investigate the DTD evolution of network performance indexes such as unfairness and inefficiency (e.g., price of anarchy (PoA)) to show how the proposed flow-dependent link toll scheme can balance the fairness and efficiency of traffic systems. We demonstrate that the proposed output stability framework can offer much more flexibility to perform qualitative analysis for these complex processes by devising suitable output functions. Finally, we show the merits of the road pricing schemes in conjunction with the output stability via numerical simulations.

Cooperative output regulation (COR) of multiagent systems having heterogeneous uncertain nonlinear dynamics is often challenging because of the complex system dynamics and the coupling among agents. This article develops an adaptive internal model-based distributed regulator such that the outputs of a network of nonlinear agents are all regulated to a reference despite external disturbances. Specifically, we consider heterogeneous agents having nonlinear strict-feedback forms, with nonidentical unknown control directions, and subject to an unknown linear exosystem. Addressing the nonlinear COR problem shows the capability and flexibility of the proposed output regulator. The simulation results of output synchronization of Lorenz systems and cooperative tracking control of multiple ships are presented to show the capability of the proposed regulator.

This paper explores design, modeling and hovering control of a new under-actuated 5-DoF (degree of freedom) tilt-birotor robot. Specifically, the robot has an assembled inverted pendulum to be an extra actuating input in addition to a pair of tilt wings. Hence, it has a 5-DoF actuator control input vector: two motor thrusts, two tilt angles, and one tunable pendulum angle. We show the model analysis in terms of the Newton-Euler formulation and establish a key equation between the model control inputs and the actuator inputs. Based on that, we are able to achieve the hovering control task using an inner-outer-loop design. We also illustrate the results by numerical and experimental tests.

This paper explores a cooperative practical output regulation problem for a class of heterogeneous multiagent nonlinear systems by event-based output feedback. Specifically, we shall restrict our attention to the situation of sampled-data-based local measurements. As usual, due to agents heterogeneity, we first convert the problem into a stabilization one for the so-called augmented system, composed of the agent systems and suitably designed continuous-time internal models. Then, we show that this stabilization can be solved by measurement feedback. It finally allows us to establish a valid event-based protocol, leading to a global practical stability property and meanwhile guaranteeing Zeno-free condition.

A distributed output regulation problem is studied for a class of nonlinearly coupled multi-agent systems, taking a decentralized output-feedback form. By a networked internal model with a preassigned topology and a decentralized stabilization design, a distributed regulator is constructed and solves the problem. As an illustration, for a three-mass-three-spring system, a problem of synchronizing every agent motion to a harmonic oscillator can be solved.

This paper addresses a global robust adaptive control problem for a class of uncertain nonlinear systems by output feedback control. The problem will be solved by the internal model design method. Our problem formulation includes the stabilization and synchronization problem of some typical nonlinear systems as special cases. As an illustration, our main result will be applied to solving a robust output synchronization problem of the generalized Lorenz system and an uncertain Harmonic system.