Damage Modeling for the Tree-Like Network with Fractional-Order Calculus

In this paper, we propose that a tree-like network with damage can be modeled as the product of a fractional-order nominal plant and a fractional-order multiplicative disturbance, which is well structured and completely characterized by the damage amount at each damaged component. Such way of modeling brings us insights about that damaged network’s behavior, helps us design robust controllers under uncertain damages and identify the damage. Although the main result in this paper is specialized to one model, we believe that this way of constructing a well-structured disturbance model can be applied to a class of damaged networks.