Stability analysis for nonlinear systems with time-delays

In this work, we investigate input-to-state stability (ISS) and other related stability properties for control systems with time-delays. To overcome the complexity caused by the presence of the delays, we adopt a Razumikhin approach. The underlying idea of this approach is to treat the delayed variables as system uncertainties. The advantage of this approach is that one works in the more familiar territory of stability analysis for delay-free systems in the context of ISS instead of carrying out stability analysis on systems of functional differential equations. Our first step is to provide criteria on ISS and input-to-input stability properties based on the Razumikhin approach. We then turn our attention to large-scale interconnected systems. It has been well recognized that the small-gain theory is a powerful tool for stability analysis of interconnected systems. Using the Razumikhin approach, we develop small-gain theorems for interconnected systems consisting of two or more subs ystems with time-delays present either in the interconnection channels or within the subsystems themselves. As an interesting application, we apply our results to an existing model for hematopoesis, a blood cell production process,and improve the previous results derived by linear methods. Another important stability notion in the framework of ISS is the integral ISS (iISS) property. This is a weaker property than ISS, so it supplies to a larger class of systems. As in the case of ISS, we provide Razumikhin criteria on iISS for systems with delays. An example is presented to illustrate that though very useful in practice, the Razumikhin approach only provides sufficient conditions, not equivalent conditions. Finally, we address stability of time-varying systems with delays in the framework of ISS.