Prescribed-time stabilization for high-order nonlinear systems with a pre-specified asymmetric output constraint

This article considers the problem of prescribed-time stabilization for a class of uncertain high-order nonlinear systems (i.e., systems in the p-normal form) with a pre-specified asymmetric output constraint. A core ingredient, tangent-type barrier function, is proposed first by skillfully excavating and assimilating the inherent properties of system nonlinearities. Based on the barrier function, as well as a serial of nested signum functions, the celebrated technique of adding a power integrator is renovated finely to establish a new design approach by which a continuous state feedback prescribed-time stabilizer, along with a tangent-type asymmetric barrier Lyapunov function, can be constructed in a systematic fashion, thereby guaranteeing the performance of prescribed-time state convergence and ensuring the fulfillment of pre-specified output constraints surely. Benefiting from the composite characteristics of the presented tangent-type barrier Lyapunov function and the signum functions, the proposed approach further offers a unified nature in design enabling us to organize a prescribed-time stabilizer that is simultaneously valid and executable for the system undergone or free from output constraints, without the need of changing the controller structure. The effectiveness and superiority of the developed approach are illustrated by a numerical example.