High‐order mismatched disturbance rejection control for small‐scale unmanned helicopter via continuous nonsingular terminal sliding‐mode approach

In this paper, the problem of finite‐time control for small‐scale unmanned helicopter system with high‐order mismatched disturbance is investigated via continuous nonsingular terminal sliding‐mode control approach. The key idea is to design a novel nonlinear dynamic sliding‐mode surface based on finite‐time disturbance observer. Then, the finite‐time convergence and chattering attenuation capability is guaranteed by the continuous nonsingular terminal sliding‐mode control law. Additionally, rigorous finite‐time stability analysis for the closed‐loop helicopter system is given by means of the Lyapunov theory. Finally, some simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness and predominant properties of the proposed control method for the small‐scale unmanned helicopter even in the presence of high‐order mismatched disturbance.     

Finite‐Time Consensus Tracking for Second‐Order Multiagent Systems

In this paper, the finite‐time consensus tracking problem is investigated for second‐order multi‐agent systems. A novel distributed consensus algorithm based on the sliding mode control (SMC) is designed, and the tracking time is estimated analytically.     

Continuous Finite‐Time Sliding Mode Control for Uncertain Nonlinear Systems with Applications to DC‐DC Buck Converters

This paper investigates the continuous finite‐time control problem of high‐order uncertain nonlinear systems with mismatched disturbances through the terminal sliding mode control method. By constructing a novel dynamic terminal sliding manifold based on the disturbance estimations of high‐order sliding mode observers, a continuous finite‐time terminal sliding mode control method is developed to counteract mismatched disturbances. To avoid discontinuous control action, the switching terms of a dynamic terminal sliding manifold are designed to appear only in the derivative term of the control variable. To validate its effectiveness, the proposed control method is applied to a DC‐DC buck converter system. The experimental results show the proposed method exhibits better control performance than a chattering free controller, such as mismatched disturbances rejection and smaller steady‐state fluctuations.     

An H∞non‐fragile observer‐based adaptive sliding mode controller design for uncertain fractional‐order nonlinear systems with time delay and input nonlinearity

In this paper the problem of non‐fragile adaptive sliding mode observer design is addressed for a class of nonlinear fractional‐order time‐delay systems with uncertainties, external disturbance, exogenous noise, and input nonlinearity. An H_∞ observer‐based adaptive sliding mode control considering the non‐fragility of the observer is proposed for this system. The sufficient asymptotic stability conditions are derived in the form of linear matrix inequalities. It is proven that the sliding surface is reachable in finite time. An illustrative example is provided which corroborates the effectiveness of the theoretical results.     

非匹配不确定系统的滑模控制及在电机控制中的应用

针对具有匹配与非匹配不确定的非线性系统,设计基于干扰观测器和多幂次趋近律的滑模控制策略.首先,通过干扰观测器估计系统的不确定,实现估计误差在有限时间内收敛;其次,基于积分型滑模面,并结合多幂次趋近律,设计了连续滑模控制律,避免了传统滑模的抖振问题.与基于单幂次和双幂次趋近律的滑模控制策略相比,所设计的基于多幂次趋近律的控制策略,提高了系统的收敛速度.最后,通过数值仿真和永磁同步电机控制仿真验证了所设计的控制策略的有效性.     

Event‐Triggered Consensus of Nonlinear Multi‐Agent Systems with Unknown External Disturbance

This paper addresses the consensus problem of nonlinear multi‐agent systems with unknown external disturbance. First, a distributed observer is proposed to estimate the state and unknown disturbance of each agent simultaneously. Then, a novel event‐triggered control scheme based on the agent state estimation and disturbance estimation is proposed. Unlike the existing strategies, our event‐triggered conditions depend on agent state estimation and disturbance estimation, which are more effective and practical. Under this observer and control strategy, some sufficient conditions are derived to ensure the consensus of the multi‐agent system with unknown external disturbance. Moreover, the Zeno‐behavior of triggering time sequences is also excluded. Finally, a simulation example is given to verify the theoretical analysis.     

Output‐feedback tracking in causal nonminimum‐phase nonlinear systems using higher‐order sliding modes

Asymptotic output‐feedback tracking in a class of causal nonminimum phase uncertain nonlinear systems is addressed via sliding mode techniques. Sliding mode control is proposed for robust stabilization of the output tracking error in the presence of a bounded disturbance. The output reference profile and the unknown input/disturbance are supposed to be described by unknown linear exogenous systems of a given order. Local asymptotic stability of the output tracking error dynamics along with the boundedness of the internal states are proven. The unstable internal states are estimated asymptotically via the proposed multistage observer that is based on the method of extended system center. A higher‐order sliding mode observer/differentiator is used for the exact estimation of the input–output states in a finite time. The bounded disturbance is reconstructed asymptotically. A numerical example illustrates the efficiency of the proposed output‐feedback tracking approach developed for causal nonminimum phase nonlinear systems. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Finite‐Time Fault‐Tolerant Control for a Class of Non‐Affine Nonlinear System Using Sliding Mode Disturbance Observer

This study investigates a finite‐time fault‐tolerant control scheme for a class of non‐affine nonlinear system with actuator faults and unknown disturbances. A global approximation method is applied to non‐affine nonlinear system to convert it into an affine‐like expression with accuracy. An adaptive terminal sliding mode disturbance observer is proposed to estimate unknown compound disturbances in finite time, including external disturbances and system uncertainties, which enhances system robustness. Controllers based on finite‐time Lyapunov theory are designed to force tracking errors to zero in finite time. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of proposed method.     

A new non‐linear sliding‐mode torque and flux control method for an induction machine incorporating a sliding‐mode flux observer

In this paper a novel sliding‐mode control algorithm, based on the differential geometry state‐co‐ordinates transformation method, is proposed to control motor torque directly. Non‐linear feedback linearization theory is employed to decouple the control of rotor flux magnitude and motor torque. The advantages of this method are: (1) The rotor flux and the generated torque can be accurately controlled. (2) Robustness with respect to matched and mismatched uncertainties is obtained. Additionally, a varying continuous control term is proposed. As a result, chattering is eliminated without sacrificing robustness and precision. The control strategy is based on all motor states being available. In practice the rotor fluxes are not usually measurable, and a sliding‐mode observer is derived to estimate the rotor flux. The observer is designed to possess invariant dynamic modes which can be assigned independently to achieve the desired performance. Furthermore, it can be shown that the observer is robust against model uncertainties and measurement noise. Simulation and practical results are presented to confirm the characteristics of the proposed control law and rotor flux observer. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Adaptive disturbance observer‐based finite‐time continuous fault‐tolerant control for reentry RLV

The control effectors of reusable launch vehicle (RLV) can produce significant perturbations and faults in reentry phase. Such a challenge imposes tight requirements to enhance the robustness of vehicle autopilot. Focusing on this problem, a novel finite‐time fault‐tolerant control strategy is proposed for reentry RLV in this paper. The key of this strategy is to design an adaptive‐gain multivariable finite‐time disturbance observer (FDO) to estimate the synthetical perturbation with unknown bounds, which is composed of model uncertainty, external disturbance, and actuator fault considered as the partial loss of actuator effectiveness in this work. Then, combined with the finite‐time high‐order observer and differentiator, a continuous homogeneous second‐order sliding mode controller based on the terminal sliding mode and super‐twisting algorithm is designed to achieve a fast and accurate RLV attitude tracking with chattering attenuation. The main features of the integrated control strategy are that the adaptation algorithm of FDO can achieve non‐overestimating values of the observer gains and the second‐order super‐twisting sliding mode approach can obtain a more elegant solution in finite time. Finally, simulation results of classical RLV (X‐33) are provided to verify the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed fault‐tolerant controller in tracking the guidance commands. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Robust control of nonlinear semi‐strict feedback systems using finite‐time disturbance observers

The output tracking controller design problem is dealt with for a class of nonlinear semi‐strict feedback systems in the presence of mismatched nonlinear uncertainties, external disturbances, and uncertain nonlinear virtual control coefficients of the subsystems. The controller is designed in a backstepping manner, and to avoid the shortcoming of ‘explosion of terms’, the dynamic surface control technique that employs a group of first‐order low‐pass filters is adopted. At each step of the virtual controller design, a robust feedback controller employing some effective nonlinear damping terms is designed to guarantee input‐to‐state practical stable property of the corresponding subsystem, so that the system states remain in the feasible domain. The virtual controller is enhanced by a finite‐time disturbance observer that estimates the disturbance term in a finite‐time. The properties of the composite control system are analyzed theoretically. Furthermore, by exploiting the cascaded structure of the control system, a simplified robust controller is proposed where only the first subsystem employs a disturbance observer. The performance of the proposed methods is confirmed by numerical examples. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Finite‐Time Consensus Problem for Second‐Order Multi‐Agent Systems Under Switching Topologies

This paper investigates the finite‐time consensus problem for multi‐agent systems with second‐order individual dynamics under switching topologies. A distributed continuous‐time protocol is designed to guarantee finite‐time consensus for homogeneous agents without predetermined leaders, i.e., it ensures agents asymptotically converge to an average consensus within finite time, even if the interaction topology among them is time‐varying but stepwise jointly‐connected. In particular, it introduces a distributed continuous‐time protocol to reach consensus in finite time and reduce the chattering together. Finally, the simulation results are also given to validate the proposed approach.     

Static output feedback sliding mode control for time‐varying delay systems with time‐delayed nonlinear disturbances

In this paper, a robust stabilization problem for a class of linear time‐varying delay systems with disturbances is studied using sliding mode techniques. Both matched and mismatched disturbances, involving time‐varying delay, are considered. The disturbances are nonlinear and have nonlinear bounds which are employed for the control design. A sliding surface is designed and the stability of the corresponding sliding motion is analysed based on the Razumikhin Theorem. Then a static output feedback sliding mode control with time delay is synthesized to drive the system to the sliding surface in finite time. Conservatism is reduced by using features of sliding mode control and systems structure. Simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed approach. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Distributed consensus and tracking control of second‐order time‐varying nonlinear multi‐agent systems

In this paper, the distributed consensus and tracking protocols are developed for the second‐order time‐varying nonlinear multi‐agent systems under general directed graph. Firstly, the consensus and tracking problems can be converted into a conventional stabilization control problem. Then a state transformation is employed to deal with the time‐varying nonlinearities. By choosing an appropriate time‐varying parameter and coupling strengths, exponential consensus and tracking of second‐order nonlinear multi‐agent systems can be achieved. Finally, a simulation is given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed consensus and tracking protocols. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Discrete‐time higher‐order sliding mode control of systems with unmatched uncertainty

The research on discrete‐time higher‐order sliding mode has received a considerable attention recently. Systems with unmatched uncertainties are common in practice; however, the existing discrete‐time higher‐order sliding mode control algorithms are designed considering only matched uncertainty. This paper proposes a technique to design discrete‐time higher‐order sliding mode control for an uncertain LTI system in the presence of unmatched uncertainty. The proposed technique is numerically simulated and experimentally validated on an electromechanical rectilinear plant. Various experiments are conducted considering the several operational conditions of electromechanical systems in industries to verify the performance of the proposed controller.     

Distributed consensus control for multi‐agent systems using terminal sliding mode and Chebyshev neural networks

This paper investigates the problem of consensus tracking control for second‐order multi‐agent systems in the presence of uncertain dynamics and bounded external disturbances. The communication ?ow among neighbor agents is described by an undirected connected graph. A fast terminal sliding manifold based on lumped state errors that include absolute and relative state errors is proposed, and then a distributed finite‐time consensus tracking controller is developed by using terminal sliding mode and Chebyshev neural networks. In the proposed control scheme, Chebyshev neural networks are used as universal approximators to learn unknown nonlinear functions in the agent dynamics online, and a robust control term using the hyperbolic tangent function is applied to counteract neural‐network approximation errors and external disturbances, which makes the proposed controller be continuous and hence chattering‐free. Meanwhile, a smooth projection algorithm is employed to guarantee that estimated parameters remain within some known bounded sets. Furthermore, the proposed control scheme for each agent only employs the information of its neighbor agents and guarantees a group of agents to track a time‐varying reference trajectory even when the reference signals are available to only a subset of the group members. Most importantly, finite‐time stability in both the reaching phase and the sliding phase is guaranteed by a Lyapunov‐based approach. Finally, numerical simulations are presented to demonstrate the performance of the proposed controller and show that the proposed controller exceeds to a linear hyperplane‐based sliding mode controller. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Consensus of second‐order multi‐agent systems with exogenous disturbances

In this paper, the consensus of second‐order multi‐agent dynamical systems with exogenous disturbances is studied. A pinning control strategy is designed for a part of agents of the multi‐agent systems without disturbances, and this pinning control can bring multiple agents' states to reaching an expected consensus track. Under the influence of the disturbances, disturbance observers‐based control (DOBC) is developed for disturbances generated by an exogenous system to estimate the disturbances. Asymptotical consensus of the multi‐agent systems with disturbances under the composite controller can be achieved for fixed and switching topologies. Finally, by applying an example of multi‐agent systems with switching topologies and exogenous disturbances, the consensus of multi‐agent systems is reached under the DOBC with the designed parameters. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Full‐Order Sliding‐Mode Control of Rigid Robotic Manipulators

This paper proposes a full‐order sliding‐mode control for rigid robotic manipulators. The output signals of the proposed controller are continuous. Therefore, the controller can be directly applied in practice. A time‐varying gain is constructed to regulate the gain of the signum function in the sliding‐mode control so as to avoid the overestimation of the upper‐bounds of the uncertainties in the systems and reduce the waste of the control power. The chattering is attenuated by using a novel full‐order sliding manifold and establishing a novel ideal sliding motion. The proposed method is robust to the load disturbance and unmodeled parameters, especially to the unknown portion in the control matrix. Simulation results validate the proposed methods.     

Robust finite‐time consensus formation control for multiple nonholonomic wheeled mobile robots via output feedback

The finite‐time formation control for multiple nonholonomic wheeled mobile robots with a leader‐following structure is studied. Different from the existing results, the considered mobile robot has the following features: (i) a higher‐order dynamic model, (ii) the robot's velocities cannot be measured, and (iii) there are external disturbances. To solve the problem, a finite‐time consensus formation control algorithm via output feedback is explicitly given. At the first step, some finite‐time convergent observers are skillfully constructed to estimate both the unknown velocity information and the disturbance in finite time by imposing certain assumptions on the disturbances. Then, on the basis of the integral sliding‐mode control method, a disturbance observer‐based finite‐time output feedback controller is developed. Rigorous proof shows that the finite‐time formation can be achieved in finite time. An example is finally given to verify the efficiency of the proposed method.     

Adaptive Leader‐Following Consensus for Uncertain Nonlinear Multi‐Agent Systems

This paper is concerned with the adaptive leader‐following consensus for first‐ and second‐order uncertain nonlinear multi‐agent systems (NMASs) with single‐ and double‐integrator leader, respectively. Remarkably, the control coefficients of the followers need not belong to any known finite interval, which makes the systems in question essentially different from those in the related works. Moreover, parameterized unknowns exist in the nonlinearities of the followers, and unknown control input is imposed on the leader, which make the problems difficult to solve. To compensate for these uncertainties/unknowns, the leader‐following consensus protocols are constructed by employing adaptive technique for the first‐order and the second‐order NMASs. Under the designed adaptive consensus protocols and the connected graph, the leader‐following consensus is achieved. Finally, two examples are given to show the effectiveness of the proposed leader‐following consensus protocols.