Robust Fault Reconstruction Design for Nonlinear Interconnected Descriptor Systems: A Distributed Observer Approach

ABSTRACT This article presents a robust distributed fault reconstruction scheme for a kind of nonlinear interconnected descriptor systems with disturbances. The Lipschitz condition is utilized to describe the nonlinearity under investigation. By introducing the coupling item among subsystems into the fault reconstruction design, a brand‐new distributed observer is established, by which multiple types of faults can be effectively estimated, such as time‐varying faults and abrupt faults. It serves as a pioneering attempt for the underlying systems. In terms of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs), sufficient criteria are given to ensure the solvability of the developed distributed observer with the prescribed performance requirement. Significantly, by subtly introducing some slack scalars and matrices, all the observer parameters can be calculated in one step instead of two steps adopted in previous related achievements. Our design, thus, reduces the computational complexity and is more intelligent. Finally, a numerical simulation is given to prove the superiority of the proposed fault reconstruction procedure.