| Physical systems are often perturbed by unknown external disturbances or contain important system parameters which are difficult to model exactly. However, engineers are expected to design systems which perform well even in the presence of uncertainties. For example, an airplane designer can never know the precise direction or magnitude of wind gusts, or the exact mass distribution inside the aircraft, but passengers expect to arrive on time after a smooth ride. This thesis will first present the concept of quadratic boundedness of an uncertain nonlinear dynamic system, and then develop analysis techniques and control design methods for systems containing unknown disturbances and parameters. For a class of nonlinear systems, conditions for quadratic boundedness are given, and the relationship between quadratic boundedness and quadratic stability is explored. An important consequence of quadratic boundedness is the ability to calculate an upper bound on the system gain of an uncertain nonlinear system. For nominally linear systems, necessary and sufficient conditions for quadratic boundedness are given. The innovative use of linear matrix inequalities in an iterative algorithm provides a means to analyze the quadratic boundedness properties of systems containing parameter uncertainties. The analysis results establish a framework for the development of design methods which integrate performance specifications into the control design process for all the types of systems considered. Numerous examples illustrate the major results of the thesis. |
