Low-complexity differentiator-based decentralized fault-tolerant control of uncertain large-scale nonlinear systems with unknown dead zone

This paper investigates a low-complexity robust decentralized fault-tolerant prescribed performance control scheme for uncertain larger-scale nonlinear systems with consideration of the unknown nonlinearity, actuator failures, dead-zone input, and external disturbance. Firstly, a new simple finite-time-convergent differentiator is developed to obtain the unmeasurable state variables with arbitrary accuracy. Then, a time-varying sliding manifold involving the output tracking error and its high-order derivatives is constructed to tackle the high-order dynamics of subsystems. Sequentially, a robust decentralized fault-tolerant control scheme is proposed for each sliding manifold with prescribed convergence rate. The prominent advantage of the proposed fault-tolerant control scheme is that any specialized approximation technique, disturbance observer, and recursive procedure of backstepping technique are avoided, which dramatically alleviates the complexity of controller design. Finally, two groups of illustrative examples are employed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the low-complexity decentralized fault-tolerant control scheme under the developed finite-time-convergent differentiator.