Abstract
Accurate measurements of all the state variables of a given system are often not available due to the high cost of sensors, the lack of space to mount the transducers or the hostile environment in which the sensors must be located. The purpose of this study was to design a robust sliding mode observer that is capable of accurately estimating the state variables of the system in the presence of disturbances and model uncertainties. It should be emphasized that the proposed observer design can handle state equations expressed in the general form. The performance of the nonlinear observer is assessed herein by examining its capability of predicting the rigid and flexible motions of a compliant beam that is connected to a revolute joint. The simulation results demonstrate the ability of the observer in accurately estimating the state variables of the system in the presence of structured uncertainties and under different initial conditions between the observer and the plant. Moreover, they illustrate the deterioration in the performance of the observer when subjected to unstructured uncertainties of the system. Furthermore, the nonlinear observer was successfully implemented to provide on-line estimates of the state variables for two model-based controllers. The simulation results show minimal deterioration in the closed-loop response of the system stemming from the usage of estimated rather than exact state variables in the computation of the control signals.
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Contributed by Professor R. A. Ibrahim.
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Chalhoub, N.G., Kfoury, G.A. Development of a Robust Nonlinear Observer for a Single-Link Flexible Manipulator. Nonlinear Dyn 39, 217–233 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11071-005-3890-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11071-005-3890-9