Summary In this paper, we provide a new nonconservative upper bound for the settling time of a class of fixed‐time stable systems. To expose the value and the applicability of this result, we present four main contributions. First, we revisit the well‐known class of fixed‐time stable systems, to show the conservatism of the classical upper estimate of its settling time. Second, we provide the smallest constant that the uniformly upper bounds the settling time of any trajectory of the system under consideration. Third, introducing a slight modification of the previous class of fixed‐time systems, we propose a new predefined‐time convergent algorithm where the least upper bound of the settling time is set a priori as a parameter of the system. At last, we design a class of predefined‐time controllers for first‐ and second‐order systems based on the exposed stability analysis. Simulation results highlight the performance of the proposed scheme regarding settling time estimation compared to existing methods.

This technical note studies Lyapunov-like conditions to ensure a class of dynamical systems to exhibit predefinedtime stability. The origin of a dynamical system is predefinedtime stable if it is fixed-time stable and an upper bound of the settling-time function can be arbitrarily chosen a priori through a suitable selection of the system parameters. We show that the studied Lyapunov-like conditions allow to demonstrate equivalence between previous Lyapunov theorems for predefinedtime stability for autonomous systems. Moreover, the obtained Lyapunov-like theorem is extended for analyzing the property of predefined-time ultimate boundedness with predefined bound, which is useful when analyzing uncertain dynamical systems. Therefore, the proposed results constitute a general framework for analyzing predefined-time stability, and they also unify a broad class of systems which present the predefined-time stability property. On the other hand, the proposed framework is used to design robust controllers for affine control systems, which induce predefined-time stability (predefined-time ultimate boundedness of the solutions) w.r.t. to some desired manifold. A simulation example is presented to show the behavior of a developed controller, especially regarding the settling time estimation.

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Summary This paper addresses the problem of optimal predefined‐time stability. Predefined‐time stable systems are a class of fixed‐time stable dynamical systems for which the minimum bound of the settling‐time function can be defined a priori as an explicit parameter of the system. Sufficient conditions for a controller to solve the optimal predefined‐time stabilization problem for a given nonlinear system are provided. These conditions involve a Lyapunov function that satisfies a certain differential inequality for guaranteeing predefined‐time stability. It also satisfies the steady‐state Hamilton–Jacobi–Bellman equation for ensuring optimality. Furthermore, for nonlinear affine systems and a certain class of performance index, a family of optimal predefined‐time stabilizing controllers is derived. This class of controllers is applied to optimize the sliding manifold reaching phase in predefined time, considering both the unperturbed and perturbed cases. For the perturbed case, the idea of integral sliding mode control is jointly used to ensure robustness. Finally, as a study case, the predefined‐time optimization of the sliding manifold reaching phase in a pendulum system is performed using the developed methods, and numerical simulations are carried out to show their behavior. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Abstract-In this paper the problem of predefined-time exact tracking of fully actuated and unperturbed mechanical systems is solved by means of a continuous controller. It is assumed the availability of the state and the desired trajectory as well as its two first derivatives. This is accomplished introducing the idea of second-order predefined-time stable systems, which is based on the nested application of the first-order predefinedtime stabilizing function. As an example, the proposed solution is applied over a two-link planar manipulator and numerical simulations are conducted to show its performance.