Robust output feedback regulation of minimum-phase nonlinear systems using conditional integrators (Q705435)

This paper is on the design of robust output feedback integral control for minimum-phase nonlinear systems with a well-defined relative degree. Consider an MIMO nonlinear system, modeled by \[ \left\{\begin{aligned} \dot x& = f(x,\theta) +\sum_{i=1}^m g_i(x,\theta)[u_i +\delta_i(x,\theta, w)],\\ y_i&=h_i(x,\theta),\quad 1\leqslant i\leqslant m, \end{aligned}\right. \tag{1} \] where \(x\in\mathbb R^n\) is the state, \(u\in\mathbb R^m\) is the control input, \(y\in\mathbb R^m\) is the output, \(\theta\) is a vector of unknown constant parameters that belongs to a compact set \(\Theta\in\mathbb R^p\), \(w(t)\) is a piecewise continuous exogenous signal that belongs to a compact set \(W\subset\mathbb R^q\), \(f(\cdot)\) and \(g_i(\cdot)\) are smooth vector fields on \(D\overset\text{def} = D_x\times \Theta\), where \(D_x\) is an open connected subset of \(\mathbb R^n\), \(h_i(\cdot)\) are smooth functions on \(D\), and the disturbances \(\delta_i(\cdot)\) are continuous functions on \(D\times W\). The formulation in (1) allows for matched disturbances that may depend on time-varying exogenous signals. The asymptotic regulation achieved by integral action happens at the expense of degrading the transient performance. The authors present an approach to improve the transient performance. The control design is a continuous sliding mode control with integral action. However, the integrator is introduced in such a way that it provides integral action only ``conditionally'', effectively eliminating the performance degradation. There are two main results in the paper: the first is asymptotic regulation and the second confirms the transient performance improvement by showing that the output feedback continuous sliding-mode control with integral action can be tuned to recover the performance of a state feedback ideal sliding mode control without integral action.