Stabilisation of four types of underactuated systems: a FAS approach

In this paper, four general types of time-varying underactuated systems (UASs) are proposed and investigated with the fully-actuated system (FAS) approach. The proposed UASs consist of both the first-order and the second-order ones, and cover a very wide range of UASs. FAS models for all these types of UASs are obtained under very mild assumptions, and corresponding homeomorphism or diffeomorphism transformations and sets of feasibility are also established. Governed by the FAS theory, once a FAS model of a system is obtained, a stabilising controller for the system can then be easily designed. Particularly, in the case that the set of feasibility coincides with the whole initial value space, a global FAS model is produced for which (and also the original system) global exponential stabilisation is immediately achieved. Otherwise, a sub-FAS with a feasible set is produced for which a sub-stabilising controller can be immediately designed. Meanwhile, a subset in the system initial value space, which is called the region of exponential attraction (REA), is characterised, such that all the solutions of converted sub-FAS starting from this domain are driven exponentially to the origin within the feasible set. Furthermore, in the case that the set of feasibility, or the REA, contains the origin as only a boundary point, the system possesses a ‘nonholonomic’ feature. Several examples are proposed to demonstrate the proposed approach and the power of the FAS approach.