Decentralized control design of interconnected chains of integrators: A case study

We develop a constructive decentralized control design procedure for a class of systems that may be loosely described as chained integrators which are dynamically coupled. The design method is inspired by nested saturation control ideas and formulated by applying the singular perturbation theory. We demonstrate that the proposed design provides a Lyapunov function for an associated closed loop system from which semi-global stability may be deduced. Using the proposed idea, we design a semi-globally stabilizing control law for a four degree of freedom spherical inverted pendulum.