Second Order Sliding Mode Observer-Based Control for Uncertain Nonlinear MEMS Optical Switch

This paper studies theuncertain nonlinear dynamics of a MEMS optical switch addressing electrical, mechanical and optical subsystems. Recently, MEMS optical switch has had significant merits in reliability, control voltage requirements and power consumption. However, an inherent weakness in designing control for such systems is unavailability of switch position information at all times due to the saturated output characteristics, which is aggravated by considering disturbances. In order to circumvent this problem, two nonlinear observers based on the first order and second order sliding mode approach are designed to estimate the state variables of the device subject to external disturbances. The nonlinear observers are then utilized in the control system to maintain robust stability and tracking performances. The newly invented second order sliding mode controller can remove the chattering phenomena as the main drawback of the first order sliding mode controller. Furthermore, since second order sliding mode control is not robust against disturbances/uncertainties which vary with states, a new time-varying second order sliding mode control is proposed to enhance the robust performance of the controller without estimating any switching time. Simulation results show that the proposed observer and control have good tracking ability and robustness against disturbances.