Global finite-time stabilization of a class of nonsmooth nonlinear systems by output feedback

This paper studies the problem of global finite-time stabilization by output feedback for a class of nonsmooth nonlinear systems which can be viewed as the dual of the high-order systems considered in [C. Qian and W. Lin (2001)], [C. Qian and W. Lin (2004)]. By extending the adding a power integrator technique [C. Qian and W. Lin (2004)] and nonsmooth observer design in [C. Qian and J. Li (2004)], an output feedback controller is explicitly constructed to render the nonsmooth nonlinear systems globally finite-time stable. The novelty of the paper is the development of a recursive design procedure to construct the nonsmooth observer with rigorous gains.