On the uniform exponential stability of a wide class of linear time-delay systems

This paper deals with the global uniform exponential stability independent of delay of time-delay linear and time-invariant systems subject to point and distributed delays for the initial conditions being continuous real functions except possibly on a set of zero measure of bounded discontinuities. It is assumed that the delay-free system as well as an auxiliary one are globally uniformly exponentially stable and globally uniform exponential stability independent of delay, respectively. The auxiliary system is typically a part of the overall dynamics of the delayed system but not necessarily the isolated undelayed dynamics as usually assumed in the literature. Since there is a great freedom in setting such an auxiliary system, the obtained stability conditions are very useful in a wide class of practical applications. (C) 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.