Frequency-domain L2-stability conditions for time-varying linear and nonlinear MIMO systems

The paper deals with the L2-stability analysis of multi-input-multi-output (MIMO) systems, governed by integral equations, with a matrix of periodic/aperiodic time-varying gains and a vector of monotone, non-monotone and quasi-monotone nonlin-earities. For nonlinear MIMO systems that are described by differential equations, most of the literature on stability is based on an application of quadratic forms as Lyapunov-function candidates. In contrast, a non-Lyapunov framework is employed here to derive new and more general L2-stability conditions in the frequency domain. These conditions have the following features: i) They are expressed in terms of the positive definiteness of the real part of matrices involving the transfer function of the linear time-invariant block and a matrix multiplier function that incorporates the minimax properties of the time-varying linear/nonlinear block. ii) For certain cases of the periodic time-varying gain, they contain, depending on the multiplier function chosen, no restrictions on the normalized rate of variation of the time-varying gain, but, for other periodic/aperiodic time-varying gains, they do. Overall, even when specialized to periodic-coefficient linear and nonlinear MIMO systems, the stability conditions are distinct from and less restrictive than recent results in the literature. No comparable results exist in the literature for aperiodic time-varying gains. Furthermore, some new stability results concerning the dwell-time problem and time-varying gain switching in linear and nonlinear MIMO systems with periodic/aperiodic matrix gains are also presented. Examples are given to illustrate a few of the stability theorems.