Estimation of the regions of attraction for autonomous nonlinear systems

A methodology for estimating the region of attraction for autonomous nonlinear systems is developed. The methodology is based on a proof that the region of attraction can be estimated accurately by the zero sublevel set of an implicit function which is the viscosity solution of a time-dependent Hamilton-Jacobi equation. The methodology starts with a given initial domain and yields a sequence of region of attraction estimates by tracking the evolution of the implicit function. The resulting sequence is contained in and converges to the exact region of attraction. While alternative iterative methods for estimating the region of attraction have been proposed, the methodology proposed in this paper can compute the region of attraction to achieve any desired accuracy in a dimensionally independent and efficient way. An implementation of the proposed methodology has been developed in the Matlab environment. The correctness and efficiency of the methodology are verified through a few examples.