Neural networks-based adaptive control for nonlinear time-varying delays systems with unknown control direction

This paper investigates a neural network (NN) state observer-based adaptive control for a class of time-varying delays nonlinear systems with unknown control direction. An adaptive neural memoryless observer, in which the knowledge of time-delay is not used, is designed to estimate the system states. Furthermore, by applying the property of the function tanh²(v/ε) /v (the function can be defined at v=0) and introducing a novel type appropriate Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional, an adaptive output feedback controller is constructed via backstepping method which can efficiently avoid the problem of controller singularity and compensate for the time-delay. It is highly proven that the closed-loop systems controller designed by the NN-basis function property, new kind parameter adaptive law and Nussbaum function in detecting the control direction is able to guarantee the semi-global uniform ultimate boundedness of all signals and the tracking error can converge to a small neighborhood of zero. The characteristic of the proposed approach is that it relaxes any restrictive assumptions of Lipschitz condition for the unknown nonlinear continuous functions. And the proposed scheme is suitable for the systems with mismatching conditions and unmeasurable states. Finally, two simulation examples are given to illustrate the effectiveness and applicability of the proposed approach.