Systems with hysteresis in the feedback loop: Existence, regularity and asymptotic behaviour of solutions

Abstract

An existence and regularity theorem is proved for integral equations of convolution type which contain hysteresis nonlinearities. On the basis of this result, frequency-domain stability criteria are derived for feedback systems with a linear infinite-dimensional system in the forward path and a hysteresis nonlinearity in the feedback path. These stability criteria are reminiscent of the classical circle criterion which applies to static sector-bounded nonlinearities. The class of hysteresis operators under consideration contains many standard hysteresis nonlinearities which are important in control engineering such as backlash (or play), plastic-elastic (or stop) and Prandtl operators. Whilst the main results are developed in the context of integral equations of convolution type, applications to well-posed state space systems are also considered. © 2003 EDP Sciences, SMAI.