A nonlinear exact disturbance observer inspired by sliding mode techniques

Inspired by sliding mode techniques, a nonlinear exact disturbance observer is proposed. The disturbance and its derivatives up to the second order are assumed to be bounded. However, the bounds of the disturbance and its derivatives are unknown, and they are adaptively estimated online during the observation of the disturbances. The exact convergence of the disturbance observer to the genuine disturbance is assured theoretically. The convergence speed of the disturbance estimation error is controlled by design parameters. The proposed method is robust to the type of disturbance and is easy to be implemented. Computer simulation results show the superiority and effectiveness of the proposed formulation.