Copyright 0 IF AC System Structure and Control,
Nantes, France, 1998
AVERAGING RESULTS FOR HOMOGENEOUS
DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS
J oan Peuteman, Dirk Aeyels
SYSTeMS
Universiteit Gent
Technologiepark-Zwijnaarde, 9
9052 GENT (Zwijnaarde)
BELGIUM
e-mail : Joan.Peuteman@rug.ac. be
e-mail : Dirk.Aeyels@rug.ac. be
Abstract : Within the Liapunov framework, a sufficient condition for uniform asymp-
totic stability of ordinary differential equations is proposed. Unlike with classical
Liapunov theory, the time derivative of the Liapunov function, taken along solutions
of the system, may have positive and negative values. It is shown that the proposed
condition is useful for the study of uniform asymptotic stability of homogeneous
systems with order T > O. In particular, it is established that asymptotic stability
of the averaged homogeneous system implies local uniform asymptotic stability of
the original time-varying homogeneous system. This shows that averaging techniques
may play a prominent role in the study of homogeneous -not necessarily fast time-
varying- systems. Serniglobal stability results may be obtained by 'speeding up' the
system by means of a change of time-scale. Copyright © 1998IFAC
Resume: Dans le contexte de Liapunov, nous proposons une condition suffisante de
stabilite uniformement asymptotique pour une equation differentielle ordinaire. La
derivee de la function de Liapunov, dans la direction des solutions du systeme, peut
prendre des valeurs positives et negatives. Cette condition va servir a. etudier la
stabilite uniformement asymptotique des systemes homogenes avec un degre r > O.
En particulier, nous montrons que la stabilite asymptotique du systeme homogene
moyennise implique la stabilite uniformement asymptotique dans le voisinage du point
d'equilibre. Ce result at montre que les techniques de moyennisation permettent d'
etudier les systemes homogenes a. l'aide d'un champ de vecteurs dont la dependence
du temps n'est pas necessairement acceleree. Des proprietes de stabilite semi-globale
sont obtenues si on accelere l'axe reel du temps du champ de vecteurs.
Keywords: Nonlinear systems, time-varying systems, asymptotic stability, averaging
control.
1. INTRODUCTION
The classical Liapunov approach to uniform asymp-
totic stability of the null solution of a dynamical
system x(t) = !(x, t) requires the existence of
a positive definite, decrescent Liapunov function
65
V(x, t) whose derivative along the solutions of
the system is negative definite. When this deriva-
tive is negative semi-definite, stability rather than
asymptotic stability follows. When the derivative
of the Liapunov function is negative semi-definite
and the differential equation is autonomous, the