Characterizing All Locally Exponentially Stabilizing Controllers as a Linear Feedback Plus Learnable Nonlinear Youla Dynamics

Abstract: We derive a state-space characterization of all dynamic state-feedback controllers that make an equilibrium of a nonlinear input-affine continuous-time system locally exponentially stable. Specirically, any controller obtained as the sum of a linear state-feedback $u=Kx$, with $K$ stabilizing the linearized system, and the output of internal locally exponentially stable controller dynamics is itself locally exponentially stabilizing. Conversely, every dynamic state-feedback controller that locally exponentially stabilizes the equilibrium admits such a decomposition. The result can be viewed as a state-space nonlinear Youla-type parametrization specialized to local, rather than global, and exponential, rather than asymptotic, closed-loop stability. The residual locally exponentially stable controller dynamics can be implemented with stable recurrent neural networks and trained as neural ODEs to achieve high closed-loop performance in nonlinear control tasks.