General fast sampling theorems for nonlinear systems

This paper is concerned with the gap metric approach to controller discretisation problems for continuous-time nonlinear systems with disturbances in both input and output channels. The principal idea is to construct a discrete controller based on a given stabilising continuous time controller via a fast sampling and hold procedure and to calculate the gap between the two controllers. It is expected that, under general conditions, the computed gap depends on the discrete sample size and the faster the sample rate, the smaller the gap and, therefore, existing gap metric robust stability theorems can be applied to obtain both stability and performance results for the appropriately discretised controller. This is shown for the case of memoryless controllers and for a more general class of controllers specified by stable, causal operators. In both cases, both regional and global results are obtained under respective local and global incremental stability assumptions on the controllers.