Deep Koopman iterative learning and stability-guaranteed control for unknown nonlinear time-varying systems

This paper proposes a Koopman-based framework for modeling, prediction, and control of unknown nonlinear time-varying systems We present a novel Koopman-based learning method for predicting the state of unknown nonlinear time-varying systems, upon which a robust controller is designed to ensure that the resulting closed-loop system is input-to-state stable with respect to the Koopman approximation error. The error of the lifted system model learned through the Koopman-based method increases over time due to the time-varying nature of the nonlinear time-varying system. To address this issue, an online iterative update scheme is incorporated into the learning process to update the lifted system model, aligning it more precisely with the nonlinear time-varying system by integrating the updated data and discarding the outdated data. A necessary condition for the feasibility of the proposed iterative learning method is derived. In order to reduce unnecessary system updates while ensuring the prediction accuracy of the lifted system, the update mechanism is enhanced to determine whether to update the lifted system and meanwhile to reduce updates that deteriorate the fitting performance. Numerical simulations on the Duffing oscillator, the serial manipulator, and the synthetic biological network system are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method for the prediction and control of unknown nonlinear time-varying systems. The results show that the proposed approach outperforms existing methods in terms of approximation accuracy and tracking accuracy. © 2026 Elsevier Ltd.