Combining Robust Control and Machine Learning for Uncertain Nonlinear Systems Subject to Persistent Disturbances*

This paper proposes a control strategy consisting of a robust controller and an Echo State Network (ESN) based control law for stabilizing a class of uncertain nonlinear discrete-time systems subject to persistent disturbances. Firstly, the robust controller is designed to ensure that the closed-loop system is Input-to-State Stable (ISS) with a guaranteed stability region regardless of the ESN control action and exogenous disturbances. Then, the ESN-based controller is trained in order to mitigate the effects of disturbances on the system output. A numerical example demonstrates the potential of the proposed control design method.