Observer synthesis for a class of nonlinear control systems (Q2564014)

Extensions of the classical Luenberger observer to bilinear systems have been reported by several authors in the 1970's. The present paper intends to widen this kind of approach to a bigger class of nonlinear systems, that is systems affine in the state by block, allowing cascade nonlinear injections from a block to another. The idea is to design an observer block by block, using the estimates of the first block as inputs of the second block observer. The contribution of the paper is twofold: on the one hand it provides an observer for this type of block- state-affine cascade systems; on the other hand it extends this design to systems which are not naturally under this form, but can be transformed to it. The methods are illustrated on the example of a blending process.