LYAPUNOV-BASED CONTROL OF SATURATED AND TIME-DELAYED NONLINEAR SYSTEMS By

To my parents Debbie and Matt Fischer for their enduring support and constant encouragement 3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express sincere gratitude to my advisor, Dr. Warren E. Dixon, whose experience and motivation have been instrumental in my academic success. As an advisor, he has provided guidance in my research and encouragement in developing my own ideas. As a mentor, he has helped me develop professional skills and has prepared me for the future. I would like to extend my gratitude to my committee members Prabir Barooah, Carl Crane, Pramod Khargonekar, and Eric. M. Schwartz for the time and recommendations they provided. Also, I would like to thank my family, coworkers (especially Rushikesh Kamalapurkar for his countless hours of coauthoring work with nonsmooth analysis), and friends for their support and inspiritment.