Improved delay-range-dependent robust stability criteria for a class of Lur’e systems with sector-bounded nonlinearity

In this paper, the problem of delay-dependent stability of a class of uncertain Lur’e systems of neutral type with interval time-varying state delay and sector-bounded nonlinearity has been considered based on Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional approach. By constructing a candidate Lyapunov–Krasovskii (LK) functional, less conservative robust stability criteria are proposed in terms of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). The reduction in conservatism of the proposed stability criteria over recently reported results is attributed to the candidate LK functional used in the delay-dependent stability analysis, and to the tighter bounding of the time-derivative of the functional without neglecting any useful terms using minimal number of slack matrix variables. The proposed analysis, subsequently, yields a stability condition in convex LMI framework, and is solved non-conservatively at boundary conditions using standard numerical packages. The effectiveness of the proposed stability criterion is demonstrated through standard numerical examples.