Decentralized switching control for hierarchical systems

In this paper, a decentralized switching scheme is introduced for uncertain interconnected systems with a structure which is “approximately hierarchical”, and where the switching controller acts on the control agents independently of each other. In this problem, it is assumed that the plant at any point of time can be described by a finite set of linear time-invariant (LTI) finite-dimensional models, but that the switching controller does not require any knowledge of these plant models; the only requirement made is that there exists a known finite set of decentralized controllers, containing at least one controller which can stabilize and regulate the actual physical plant at any time. Simulation results obtained for the proposed decentralized switching controller are given.