Approximate Optimal Tracking Control of Nondifferentiable Signals for a Class of Continuous-Time Nonlinear Systems

In this article, for a class of continuous-time nonlinear nonaffine systems with unknown dynamics, a robust approximate optimal tracking controller (RAOTC) is proposed in the framework of adaptive dynamic programming (ADP). The distinguishing contribution of this article is that a new Lyapunov function is constructed, by using which the derivative information of tracking errors is not required in computing its time derivative along with the solution of the closed-loop system. Thus, the proposed method can make the system states follow nondifferentiable reference signals, which removes the common assumption that the reference signals have to be continuous for tracking control of continuous-time nonlinear systems in the literature. The theoretical analysis, simulation, and application results well illustrate the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed method.