2009 American Control Conference
3
Hyatt Regency Riverfront, St. Louis, MO, USA
June 10-12, 2009
Sliding-Mode Observers for Uncertain Systems
Karanjit Kalsi, Jianming Lian, Stefen Hui and Stanislaw H. Żak
Abstract— Sliding-mode observer design is considered for
linear systems with unknown inputs when the so-called observer
matching condition is not satisfied. To circumvent the restriction
imposed by the observer matching condition, the method of
utilizing auxiliary outputs generated by high-order sliding-
mode exact differentiators in the sliding-mode observer design
has been proposed in the literature. In this paper, an alternative
approach is proposed to use high-gain approximate differen-
tiators of simpler architecture instead of high-order sliding-
mode exact differentiators. The capability of reconstructing
the unknown inputs using the proposed high-gain approximate
differentiator based sliding-mode observer is also discussed and
then illustrated with a numerical example.
I. I NTRODUCTION
Unknown input observer (UIO) has been developed to
estimate the states of the system with inputs that are unknown
or partially known. Linear UIO architectures that have been
developed for linear system are presented in [1]–[5]. UIO ar-
chitectures for non-linear systems with unknown inputs have
been reported in [6], [7]. Motivated by the design of sliding-
mode controllers, first-order sliding mode based UIOs have
been discussed in [5], [8]–[10]. The main advantage of
sliding-mode observers over their linear counterparts is that
while in sliding, they are insensitive to the unknown inputs,
and, moreover, they can be used to reconstruct unknown
inputs which could be a combination of system disturbances,
faults or non-linearities. The reconstruction of unknown
inputs has found impressive applications in fault-detection
and isolation [4], [9], [10].
The necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence
of most of the unknown input observers proposed thus far
are that the observer matching condition is satisfied and the
invariant zeros of the system involving unknown input are
in the open left half complex plane. However, the observer
matching condition seriously restrict the applicability of slid-
ing mode observers. Recently, high-order sliding mode based
unknown input observers [11]–[14] have been developed
to overcome this restrictive condition. In [13], a change
of coordinates is performed using a constructive algorithm
to transform the system into a quasi-block triangular ob-
servable form. Then a step-by-step second order sliding-
mode observer is constructed for the transformed system.
In [14], auxiliary outputs are defined so that the conventional
unknown input sliding-mode observer proposed in [9] can
Karanjit Kalsi, Jianming Lian and Stanislaw H. Żak are with the School
of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Purdue University, IN 47907,
USA. {kkalsi,jlian,zak}@purdue.edu. Stefen Hui is with
the Department of Mathematical Sciences, San Diego State University, San
Diego, CA 92182, USA. hui@saturn.sdsu.edu.
978-1-4244-4524-0/09/$25.00 ©2009 AACC
WeB16.
be constructed for systems that do not satisfy the observer
matching condition.
In this paper, we design the sliding-mode observer pre-
sented in [8] for systems that do not satisfy the observer
matching condition. We adopt the idea of auxiliary outputs
used in [14], but propose an alternative approach for the
generation of auxiliary outputs. We use high-gain observers
rather than high-order sliding-mode observers to obtain the
estimates of auxiliary outputs. The high-gain observer is
often referred to as approximate differentiator [15]. The
proposed high-gain approximate differentiator based sliding-
mode observer can achieve good state estimation perfor-
mance. The advantage of our developed technique is that
the overall observer architecture is simpler than the high-
order sliding-mode exact differentiator based sliding-mode
observer proposed in [14]. We also discuss the capability
of the proposed high-gain approximate differentiator based
sliding-mode observer in the unknown input reconstruction,
which is then illustrated with a numerical example.
II. S YSTEM D ESCRIPTION AND P ROBLEM S TATEMENT
We consider the following class of linear time-invariant
systems with unknown inputs

ẋ = Ax + B 1 u1 + B 2 u2
(1)
y = Cx,
where x ∈ Rn , y ∈ Rp , u1 ∈ Rm1 and u2 ∈ Rm2 are
the state, output, known and unknown input vectors, and
B 1 ∈ Rn×m1 , B 2 ∈ Rn×m2 and C ∈ Rp×n are known
constant matrices. For the above system, we assume that
1) B 2 and C are of full rank, that is, rank B 2 = m2 and
rank C = p, and m2 ≤ p;
2) there is ρ > 0 such that ku2 (t)k ≤ ρ for all t, where
k·k denotes the standard Euclidean norm;
3) the invariant zeros of the system model given by the
triple (A, B 2 , C) are in the open left-hand complex
plane, or equivalently,
 
sI n − A B 2
rank = n + m2 . (2)
C O
for all s such that ℜ(s) ≥ 0.
It follows from [8] that, if the so-called observer matching
condition [13] is also satisfied for the system modeled by (1),
that is,
rank B 2 = rank(CB 2 ) = m2 , (3)
we can construct the Walcott-Żak sliding-mode observer,
˙ = Ax̂ + B 1 u1 + L (y − ŷ) − B 2 E(y, ŷ, η)
x̂ (4)
1189
with ŷ = C x̂ and B. High-Gain Observer Construction

F (ŷ −y ) In [14], high-order sliding-mode observers have been
η F ŷ −y if F (ŷ − y) 6= 0

E(y, ŷ, η) = k ( )k (5) employed to obtain the auxiliary outputs in y a . We propose
 0 if F (ŷ − y) = 0, to use high-gain observers to estimate the auxiliary outputs
instead. The reason behind this is because they have simpler
where η is a positive design parameter, L ∈ Rn×p and F ∈ architectures than high-order sliding-mode observers.
Rm2 ×p are matrices such that To proceed, we let yij = ci Aj−1 x, i = 1, . . . , p and
⊤
j = 1, . . . , γi . Thus, we have y a = [y ⊤ ⊤ ⊤
a1 · · · y ap ] , where
(A − LC) P + P (A − LC) = −2Q < 0 ⊤
y ai = [yi1 · · · yiγi ] . If γi > 1, the dynamics of y ai ,
i = 1, . . . , p, are given by
and F C = B ⊤ 2 P for some symmetric positive definite 
P ∈ Rn×n and Q ∈ Rn×n . The design procedures for the ẏ ai = Āi y ai + b̄i1 fi (x, u2 ) + b̄i2 u1
(6)
matrices Li , F i and P oi is given in [5]. yi1 = c̄i y ai ,
However, many physical systems that can be modeled
where the pair (Āi , b̄i1 ) is in canonical controllable form
by (1) do not satisfy the observer matching condition (3). The
representing the chain of γi integrators,
observer matching condition (3) is sometimes too restrictive
in practical applications. fi (x, u2 ) = ci Aγi x + ci Aγi −1 B 1 u2 , (7)

III. H IGH -G AIN A PPROXIMATE D IFFERENTIATOR b̄i2 = [ci B 1 · · · ci Aγi −1 B 1 ]⊤ and c̄i = [1 0 · · · 0]. We
assume, as in [14], that x and ẋ are bounded and |yij | ≤ dij ,
In this section, we propose a high-gain approximate dif- which implies that u1 is bounded. If γi > 1, we construct
ferentiator based sliding-mode observer for the systems that the following high-gain observers,
do not satisfy the observer matching condition.
ŷ˙ i1 = ŷi2 + αǫi1 (yi1 − ŷi1 ) + ci B 1 u1


..

A. Auxiliary Output Signals


.
α i −1)
We first define as in [14] the auxiliary outputs that are then ŷ˙ i(γi −1) = ŷiγi + ǫi(γ γi −1 (yi1 − ŷi1 ) + ci Aγi −2 B 1 u1 

α

used to construct the sliding-mode observer. Let ci be the i- ˙ŷiγ = iγ γ
i
(y i1 − ŷ i1 ) + ci Aγi −1
B 1 u 1 ,

i ǫ i
th row of the output matrix C. Recall that the relative degree (8)
of the i-th output yi with respect to the unknown input u2 where ǫ ∈ (0, 1) is a design parameter and αij , j = 1, . . . , γi ,
is defined to be the smallest positive integer ri such that are selected so that the roots of the equation, sγi +αi1 sγi −1 +
· · · + αi(γi −1) s + αiγi = 0, have negative real parts. Let
ci Ak B 2 = 0, k = 0, . . . , ri − 2 y hi = [ŷi1 · · · ŷiγi ]⊤ and li = [αi1 /ǫ · · · αiγi /ǫγi ]⊤ . We
ci Ari −1 B 2 6= 0. can rewrite (8) as

We can choose integers γi (1 ≤ γi ≤ ri ) such that ẏ hi = Āi y hi + li c̄i (y ai − y hi ) + b̄i2 u1 . (9)

c1 If γi = 1, we do not need to construct the above high-gain

 
 ..  observer (9) because of the availability of yi1 . In such a case,
 . 
we have y hi = y ai = yi1 . To proceed, let ζ i = 0 if γi = 1
 c1 Aγ1 −1 
 
  and let ζ i = [ζi1 · · · ζiγi ]⊤ if γi > 1, where
Ca = 
 .. 
. 
yij − ŷij
ζij = , j = 1, . . . , γi . (10)
 

 cp 
 ǫγi −j
 .. 
 .  It follows from (6) and (9) that if γi > 1, we have
cp Aγp −1
ǫζ̇ i = Āci ζ i + ǫb̄i1 fi (x, u2 ), (11)
is of full rank with rank(C a B 2 ) = rank B 2 . It is proved
where Āci = ǫD−1 i (Āi − li c̄i )D i is a Hurwitz matrix
in [14] that the system zeros of the system model given by
independent of ǫ. Applying the method in [16], we can prove
the triple (A, B 2 , C a ) are in the open left-hand complex
the following proposition.
plane if the triple (A, B 2 , C) satisfies (2). Thus, we can
Proposition: For the high-gain observer (9), there exists a
construct the sliding-mode observer of the form (4) for the
finite time Ti (ǫ) such that kζ i (t)k ≤ βi ǫ for some positive
following system model
constant βi and t ≥ t0 + Ti (ǫ). Moreover, Ti (ǫ) approaches
zero when ǫ approaches to zero, that is, limǫ→0+ Ti (ǫ) = 0.

ẋ = Ax + B 1 u1 + B 2 u2
y a = C a x, It follows from (10) that y ai − y hi = Di ζ i , where D i =
diag[ǫγi −1 ǫγi −2 · · · 1]. Let y h = [y ⊤ ⊤ ⊤
h1 · · · y hp ] , D =
if the output y a = C a x is available. However, some com- ⊤ ⊤ ⊤
diag[D 1 · · · Dp ] and ζ = [ζ 1 · · · ζ p ] . We have
ponents of the vector y a are not measurable and, therefore,
additional observers are needed to estimate them. y a − y h = Dζ. (12)

1190
Note that the induced Euclidean norm of D is 1, that is, e(t) is bounded for t0 ≤ t ≤ t0 + T (ǫ). For t ≥ t0 + T (ǫ),
kDk = 1. Let βi = 0 and Ti (ǫ) = 0 if γi = 1. Thus, because y sh (t) = y h (t) and y h = y a − Dζ, the dynamics
itPfollows from the proposition that kζk ≤ βǫ, where β = of the state estimation error (15) become
p 1
( i=1 βi2 ) 2 , after a finite time T (ǫ) = max1≤i≤p Ti (ǫ), and
limǫ→0 T (ǫ) = 0. ė = Ae + La (y h − ŷ a ) − B 2 u2 − B 2 E a (y h , ŷ a , η)
= (A − La C a ) e − La Dζ − B 2 u2
IV. S TATE E STIMATION P ERFORMANCE A NALYSIS
− B 2 E a (y h , ŷ a , η). (16)
In order to eliminate the peaking phenomena that accom-
panies the operation of the above high-gain observer [17], Consider the Lyapunov function candidate V = 21 e⊤ P a e
we introduce the saturation of the signal y h such that y sh = for t ≥ t0 + T (ǫ). Evaluating the time derivative of V on
[y sh1 ⊤ · · · y shp ⊤ ]⊤ , where y shi = y ai = yi1 if γi = 1 and the solutions of (16), we obtain
 
ŷi1
 
ŷiγi
 ⊤ V̇ = e⊤ P (A − La C a ) e − e⊤ P a La Dζ
s
y hi = Si1 sat · · · Siγi sat − e⊤ P a B 2 u2 − e⊤ P a B 2 E a (y h , ŷ a , η)
Si1 Siγi
with Sij > dij if γi > 1. Then we construct the following = −e⊤ Qa e − e⊤ P a La Dζ
sliding-mode observer, − (F a C a e)⊤ u2 − (F a C a e)⊤ E a (y h , ŷ a , η)
˙ = Ax̂+B 1 u1 +La (y s − ŷ )−B 2 E a (y s , ŷ , η), (13) = −e⊤ Qa e − e⊤ P a La Dζ − (F a C a e + F a Dζ)⊤ u2
x̂ h a h a
− (F a C a e + F a Dζ)⊤ E a (y h , ŷ a , η)
where ŷ a = C a x̂ and
 + (F a Dζ)⊤ u2 + (F a Dζ)⊤ E a (y h , ŷ a , η).
 F a (ŷ a −y sh )
s η F ŷ −y s if F a (ŷ a − y sh ) 6= 0 If F a (C a e + Dζ) = 0, then
E a (y h , ŷ a , η) = k a ( a h )k
0 if F a (ŷ a − y sh ) = 0. −(F a C a e + F a Dζ)⊤ u2
where La ∈ Rn×γ and F a ∈ Rm2 ×γ are matrices such that − (F a C a e + F a C a e)⊤ E a = 0. (17)
⊤
(A − La C a ) P a + P a (A − La C a ) = −2Qa < 0 On the other hand, if F a (C a e + Dζ) 6= 0, then
and −(F a C a e + F a Dζ)⊤ u2 − (F a C a e + F a C a e)⊤ E a
F aC a = B⊤
2 Pa (14) = −(F a C a e + F a Dζ)⊤ u2
for some symmetric positive definite P a ∈ Rn×n and Qa ∈ F a C a e + F a Dζ
− η(F a C a e + F a Dζ)⊤
Rn×n . It follows from (1) and (13) that kF a C a e + F a Dζk
≤ −(η − ρ)kF a C a e + F a Dζk ≤ 0. (18)
ė = Ae + La (y sh − ŷ a ) − B 2 u2 − B 2 E a (y sh , ŷ a , η). (15)
It follows from (17) and (18) that in both cases we have
In the following, we analyze the performance of the proposed
high-gain approximate differentiator based sliding-mode ob- V̇ ≤ −e⊤ Qa e − e⊤ P a La Dζ
server given by (13). + (F a Dζ)⊤ u2 + (F a Dζ)⊤ E a (y h , ŷ a , η)
Theorem 1: For the dynamical system (1) and the associ- ≤ −λmin (Qa )kek2 + βǫkP a La kkek
ated sliding-mode observer (13) with high-gain approximate
differentiators (9), there exists a constant ǫ∗ ∈ (0, 1) such + (η + ρ)βǫkF a k
√
that if ǫ ∈ (0, ǫ∗ ) and η ≥ ρ, then the state estimation error = −2µa V + κ1 ǫ V + κ2 ǫ, (19)
e(t) is uniformly ultimately bounded. Specifically, after a √ q
finite time Tf (ǫ), we have ke(t)k ≤ κ(ǫ), where where κ1 = 2βkP a La k/ λmax(P a ) and κ2 = (η +
p s ρ)βkF a k. It follows from (19) that
κ1 ǫ + κ21 ǫ2 + 4µa κ1 ǫ 2 √
κ(ǫ) = V̇ ≤ −µa V − µa V + κ1 ǫ V + κ2 ǫ
2µa λmin (P a ) √  √ 
= −µa V − V − R− V − R+ , (20)
for positive constants µa , κ1 and κ2 .
Proof: It follows from the proposition that kζ(t)k ≤ βǫ where p
for t ≥ t0 + T (ǫ). Then, it follows from (12) that kya (t) − κ1 ǫ − κ21 ǫ2 + 4µa κ2 ǫ
R− = <0
y h (t)k ≤ βǫ for t ≥ t0 +T (ǫ). There exists a constant ǭ such 2µa
that if kya (t) − y h (t)k ≤ βǭ, then y h (t) is not saturated,
and
that is, y sh (t) = y h (t). Thus, we can choose ǫ∗ = min{ǭ, 1} κ1 ǫ +
p
κ21 ǫ2 + 4µa κ1 ǫ
such that if ǫ ∈ (0, ǫ∗ ), then kζ(t)k ≤ βǫ and y sh (t) = y h (t) R+ = > 0.
2µa
after a finite time T (ǫ).
For t0 ≤ t ≤ t0 + T (ǫ), it is guaranteed that the observer We conclude from (20) that V̇ < 0 when kek > R+ . Thus,
state vector x̂(t) in (13) is bounded because u1 , y sh and the state estimation error e is uniformly ultimately bounded
E a (y sh , ŷ a , η) are bounded and A−La C a is Hurwitz. Thus, with respect to any closed ball of radius greater than R+ .

1191
 √ 2
Hence,
√ as long √ as V > R+ , that is, V > R+ , we It follows from (22) that if we choose η such that
have ( V − R− )( V − R+ ) < 0. Therefore, if V (t0 + κ3 + κ4 + κ5 + κ6 + κ7
T (ǫ)) = V (e(t0 + T (ǫ))) > R+ 2
and V (t) > R+ 2
for η≥ + ε,
κ8
t ≥ t0 + Tf (ǫ), then V̇ ≤ −µa V , which implies that
where ε is a small positive constant, then
V (t) ≤ exp (−µa (t − t0 − T (ǫ))) V (t0 + T (ǫ)). Thus, we
can find a finite time Tf (ǫ) such that V (t) ≤ R+ 2
for σ ⊤ σ̇ ≤ −εkσk, (23)
t ≥ t0 + T (ǫ), where Tf (ǫ) is the solution to the equation
2 which implies the above hyperplane is invariant. Let Ts
V (t0 + T (ǫ)) exp(−µa (Tf (ǫ) − T (ǫ))) = R+ as
  denote the time the sliding surface is reached. Using the
1 V (t0 + T (ǫ)) same arguments as in [9, p. 53], we obtain
Tf (ǫ) = T (ǫ) + ln 2 .
µa R+ kσ(t0 + Tf (R))k
2 2 Ts ≤ t0 + Tf (R) + .
On the other hand, if V (t0 + T (ǫ)) ≤ R+ , then V (t) ≤ R+ ε
for t ≥ t0 + T (ǫ). In such a case, we can choose Tf (ǫ) = Thus, the proof of the theorem is complete.
T (ǫ). Therefore, there exists a finite time Tf (ǫ) such that
V (t) ≤ R+ 2
for t ≥ t0 + Tf (ǫ), which implies that ke(t)k ≤ V. U NKNOWN I NPUT R ECONSTRUCTION
κ(ǫ). The proof of the theorem is complete. It follows from Theorem 2 that the manifold {(e, ζ) : σ =
Remark: It follows from Theorem 1 that the state esti- F a (C a e+Dζ) = 0} is invariant and is reached after a finite
mation error enters the closed ball {e : kek ≤ κ(ǫ)} after a time. Therefore, we have
finite time Tf (ǫ). It is easy to verify that
 σ̇ = F a C a (A − La C a )e − F a C a La Dζ − F a C a B 2 u2
∞ if V (t0 ) 6= 0
lim Tf (ǫ) = − F a C a B 2 E a (y sh , ŷ a , η) + F a D ζ̇ = 0. (24)
ǫ→0+ 0 if V (t0 ) = 0,
Substituting (14) into (24) and performing simple manipula-
because limǫ→0+ T (ǫ) = 0 and limǫ→0+ R+ = 0. Moreover,
tions, we obtain
the radius of the above closed ball can be adjusted by the −1 
design parameter ǫ and because limǫ→0+ κ(ǫ) = 0, the state

u2 = B ⊤ 2 P aB2 F a C a (A − La C a )e + F a D ζ̇
estimation error e converges to the origin as ǫ goes to zero. 
Theorem 2: For sufficiently large η, the sliding surface, F a C a La Dζ − E a (y sh , ŷ a , η).. (25)
{(e, ζ) : σ = F a (C a e + Dζ) = 0} is invariant in the
(e, ζ)-space and is reached in finite time. By the proposition, we have kζ(t)k ≤ βǫ for t ≥ t0 + T (ǫ).
Proof: Let ζ = [ζ ⊤ ⊤ ⊤
1 · · · ζ p ] . Using (11) for γi > 1
By Theorem 1, we have ke(t)k ≤ κ(ǫ) for t ≥ t0 + Tf (ǫ),
and the fact that ζ i = 0 if γi = 1, we obtain where limǫ→0+ κ(ǫ) = 0. Therefore, for sufficiently small ǫ,
kζ(t)k and ke(t)k becomes negligible after a finite time. If,
ǫζ̇ = Āc ζ + ǫB̄ 1 f (x, u2 ), (21)
in addition, kζ̇(t)k becomes negligible for sufficiently small
where Āc = diag[Āc1 · · · Ācp ], B̄ 1 = diag[b̄11 · · · b̄p1 ] ǫ, it follows from (25) that after a finite time,
with Āci = O and b̄i1 = 0 if γi = 1 and f (x, u2 ) =
u2 ≈ −E a (y sh , ŷ a , η). (26)
[f1 (x, u2 ) · · · fp (x, u2 )]⊤ . Because x and u2 are bounded,
we have kf (x, u2 )k ≤ β1 for some β1 > 0. For t ≥ t0 + That is, we can use the proposed architecture to estimate the
Tf (ǫ), it follows from (16) and (21) that unknown input u2 for sufficiently small ǫ.
  Recall that ζ = [ζ ⊤ ⊤ ⊤
1 · · · ζ p ] and ζ i = ζ̇ i = 0 if γi = 1.
σ ⊤ σ̇ = σ ⊤ F a C a ė + F a D ζ̇
 Thus, in order to obtain (26), it remains to show that if γi >
⊤ 1, then kζ̇ i (t)k becomes negligible for sufficiently small ǫ.
=σ F a C a (A − La C a )e − F a C a La Dζ
We first rewrite (11) as
− F a C a B 2 u2 − F a C a B 2 E a 1
 ζ̇ i (t) = Āci ζ i (t) + v i (t), (27)
1 ǫ
+ F a D Āc ζ + F a D B̄ 1 f (x, u2 )
ǫ where v i (t) = b̄i1 fi (x(t), u2 (t)). Because x(t) and u2 (t)
≤ κ(ǫ)kF a C a (A − La C a )kkσk are bounded, it follows from (7) that fi (x(t), u2 (t)) is
+ βǫkF a C a La kkσk + β1 kF a kkB̄1 kkσk bounded. Thus, v i (t) is bounded. To proceed, we define two
+ λmax (B ⊤ notions regarding the function v i (t).
2 P a B 2 )ku2 kkσk
Definition 1: A function v i (t) is left-continuous if
− ηλmin (B ⊤
2 P a B 2 )kσk + βkF
a kkĀc kkσk limǫ→0+ v i (t − ǫ) = v i (t) for all t.

κ3 + κ4 + κ5 + κ6 + κ7 Definition 2: A function v i (t) defined on S ⊂ R is
=− η− κ8 kσk, (22)
κ8 weakly uniformly continuous if for every ν > 0, there exists
where a δ > 0 such that for each interval Ω ⊂ S with length less
than δ, kv i (s) − v i (t)k < ν for s, t ∈ Ω.
κ3 = κ(ǫ)kF a C a (A − La C a )k, κ4 = βǫkF a C a La k,
In the following, we use S1 + S2 , where S1 , S2 ⊂ R, to
κ5 = ρλmax (B ⊤
2 P a B 2 ), κ6 = βkF a kkĀc k, denote the set {s1 + s2 : s1 ∈ S1 , s2 ∈ S2 }. If S1 or S2 is
κ7 = kF a kkB̄ 1 kkf(x, u2 )k, κ8 = λmin (B ⊤
2 P a B 2 ). empty, then S1 + S2 is defined to be empty.

1192
 Let J denote the set of points at which v i (t) is discontin- 1.5
y
uous and let τ > t0 > 0. It can be shown, as in [18], that 1
12
y12 estimate
if v i (t) is left-continuous, then limǫ→0+ ζ̇ i (t) = 0 for each
t > t0 ≥ 0. Moreover, if v i (t) is also weakly uniformly 0.5

continuous on [τ, ∞)\J, then the convergence of ζ̇ i (t) to 0

0 as ǫ → 0+ is uniform on [τ, ∞)\(J + (0, ξ)) for each
ξ > 0. In particular, if v i (t) is uniformly continuous, then −0.5

the convergence is uniform on [τ, ∞). The detailed proof of −1

this result can be found in [18], where a more general case
−1.5
regarding v i (t) is also considered. 0 2 4 6
time (sec)
8 10

1.5
VI. N UMERICAL E XAMPLE y
13
y13 estimate
1
In this section, we illustrate the effectiveness of our
0.5
proposed high-gain approximate differentiator based sliding-
mode observer with a numerical example. Our simulations 0

demonstrate that its performance is quite similar to that

−0.5
of the high-order sliding-mode exact differentiator based
sliding-mode observer. Due to lack of space, we only show −1

simulations with the high-gain approximate differentiator −1.5

0 2 4 6 8 10
based sliding-mode observer. time (sec)

We consider a linear time invariant system modeled by

Fig. 1. True and estimated auxiliary outputs.
 
0 1 0 0 0
 0 0 1 0 0 
η = 50 to obtain
 
A= 0 0 0 1 0 ,
 0 0 0 0 1 

6 1 0 0

 ⊤
−1 −5 −10 −10 −5 0 7 0 0
   0 0 0 0
0 0 La =  0 0 2.0659
 0, Fa = 
 0 −1  .

 0 0    0 0 0 2.0659 
  1 0 0 0 0 1 0
B 2 =  0 −1  , C =
  . 0 0 0 0
 1 0 0 0 1 0
0  We set the initial states of the sliding-mode observer to be
0 0 zero, that is, x̂(0) = 0, and select S11 = S12 = S13 = 1.5.
In Fig. 2, we show the state estimation performance. The
We do not consider B 1 , because we set u1 = 0 for
unknown inputs reconstruction is illustrated in Fig. 3.
simplicity. The initial condition is selected to be x(0) =
[0.5 0.5 0.5 −0.5 −0.5]⊤ . The unknown input u2 consists VII. C ONCLUSIONS
of a square wave of amplitude 1 and frequency 1Hz, and a
A novel sliding-mode observer has been proposed for
sawtooth signal of amplitude 2 and frequency 1Hz.
systems with unknown inputs, where the observer matching
It is easy to check that for this system rank(CB 2 ) 6= condition is not satisfied. High-gain approximate differentia-
rank B 2 because c1 B 2 = 0. Thus, we choose γ1 = r1 = 3 tors were employed to estimate auxiliary outputs that are then
such that used by the sliding-mode observer to estimate the states and

c1
 
1 0 0 0 0
 reconstruct the unknown inputs. The proposed observer has
 c1 A   0 1 0 0 0  simple architecture and performs comparably to the high-
Ca =  c1 A2  =  0 0 1 0 0 
   order sliding-mode exact differentiator based sliding-mode
c2 0 0 0 1 0 observer in [14].
R EFERENCES
is of full rank with rank(C a B 2 ) = rank B 2 . We employ a
[1] M. Hou and P. Müller, “Design of observers for linear systems with
high-gain observer to estimate the auxiliary outputs y12 = unknown inputs,” IEEE Trans. Autom. Control, vol. 37, no. 6, pp.
c1 Ax and y13 = c1 A2 x. The design parameters of the high- 871–875, Jun. 1992.
gain observer are selected to be α11 = 3, α12 = 3, α13 = 1 [2] M. Darouach, M. Zasadzinski, and S. Xu, “Full-order observers for
linear systems with unknown inputs,” IEEE Trans. Autom. Control,
and ǫ = 0.001. The estimated and true values of the auxiliary vol. 39, no. 3, pp. 606–609, Mar. 1994.
outputs are shown in Fig. 1. [3] M. Corless and J. Tu, “State and input estimation for a class of
Now we use the estimates of the auxiliary outputs to uncertain systems,” Automatica, vol. 34, no. 6, pp. 757–764, 1998.
[4] J. Chen and R. Patton, Robust Model-Based Fault Diagnosis for
construct the sliding-mode observer described by (13). Fol- Dynamical Systems. Norwell, Massachusetts: Kluwer Academic
lowing the algorithm given in [5], we use κ = 2.0659 and Publishers, 1999.

1193
 3
1.5 u
21
x u21 estimate
1
x1 estimate 2

1 1

0
0.5

−1

0 −2

−3
−0.5 0 2 4 6 8 10
0 2 4 6 8 10 time (sec)
time (sec)

4
1 u
22
x 3 u22 estimate
2
x2 estimate
2

0.5 1

−1
0 −2

−3

−4
−0.5 0 2 4 6 8 10
0 2 4 6 8 10 time (sec)
time (sec)

Fig. 3. Unknown input reconstruction.

1
x
0.8 3
x3 estimate
0.6
0.4 [5] S. Hui and S. H. Żak, “Observer design for systems with unknown
0.2 inputs,” Int. J. Appl. Math. Comput. Sci, vol. 15, no. 4, pp. 431–446,
0
2005.
[6] J.-J. Slotine, J. K. Hedrick, and E. A. Misawa, “On sliding observers
−0.2
for nonlinear systems,” ASME J. Dyn. System Measurement Control,
−0.4
vol. 109, pp. 245–252, 1987.
−0.6 [7] Y. Xiong and M. Saif, “Sliding mode observer for nonlinear uncertain
−0.8 systems,” IEEE Trans. Autom. Control, vol. 46, no. 12, pp. 2012–2017,
−1 Dec. 2001.
0 2 4 6 8 10
time (sec) [8] B. Walcott and S. H. Żak, “State observation of nonlinear uncertain
dynamical systems,” IEEE Trans. Autom. Control, vol. 32, no. 2, pp.
1 166–170, Feb. 1987.
0.8
x
4 [9] C. Edwards and S. K. Spurgeon, Sliding Mode Control: Theory and
x4 estimate Applications. London, UK: Taylor and Francis Group, 1998.
0.6
[10] C. Edwards, S. K. Spurgeon, and R. J. Patton, “Sliding mode observers
0.4 for fault detection and isolation,” Automatica, vol. 36, pp. 541–553,
0.2 2000.
0 [11] L. Fridman, A. Levant, and J. Davila, “Observation of linear systems
−0.2 with unknown inputs via higher order sliding modes,” Int. J. Systems
−0.4 Science, vol. 38, no. 10, pp. 773–791, Oct. 2007.
−0.6
[12] F. J. Bejarano, L. Fridman, and A. Poznyak, “Exact state esimation
for linear systems with unknown inputs based on hierarchical super
−0.8
twisting algorithm,” Int. J. Robust Nonlinear Contr., vol. 17, no. 18,
−1 pp. 1734–1753, Mar. 2007.
0 2 4 6 8 10
time (sec) [13] T. Floquet and J. P. Barbot, “A canonical form for the design of
unknown input sliding mode observers,” in Advances in Variable
2 Structure and Sliding Mode Control, C. Edwards, E. F. Colet, and
x5
x estimate
L. Fridman, Eds. Berlin: Springer, 2006, vol. 334.
1.5 5
[14] T. Floquet, C. Edwards, and S. K. Spurgeon, “On sliding mode
1 observers for systems with unknown inputs,” Int. J. Adapt. Control
Signal Process., vol. 21, pp. 638–656, 2007.
0.5 [15] H. K. Khalil, “High gain observers in nonlinear feedback control,” in
0
Lecture Notes in Control and Information Sciences. Berlin: Springer-
Verlag, 1999, vol. 244.
−0.5 [16] N. A. Mahmoud and H. K. Khalil, “Asymptotic regulation of minimum
phase nonlinear systems using output feedback,” IEEE Trans. Autom.
−1 Control, vol. 41, no. 10, pp. 1402–1412, Oct. 1996.
−1.5
[17] F. Esfandiari and H. K. Khalil, “Output feedback stabilization of fully
0 2 4 6 8 10 linearizable systems,” Int. J. Contr., vol. 56, pp. 1007–1037, Nov. 1992.
time (sec)
[18] K. Kalsi, J. Lian, S. Hui, and S. H. Żak, “Sliding-mode observers
for linear systems with unknown inputs,” revised and re-submitted to
Fig. 2. True and estimated system states. IEEE Trans. Autom. Control, 2008.

1194