Model-Free Controller Design for Nonlinear Underactuated Systems With Uncertainties and Disturbances by Using Extended State Observer Based Chattering-Free Sliding Mode Control

Most of the control strategies require a mathematical model or reasonable knowledge that is difficult to obtain for complex systems. Model-free control is a good alternative to avoid the difficulties and complex modeling procedures, especially if the knowledge about the system is insufficient. This paper presents a new control scheme completely independent of the system model. The proposed scheme combines sliding mode control (SMC) with intelligent proportional integral derivative (iPID) control based on a local model and extended state observer (ESO). Although the iPID control makes the proposed method model-free, it cannot guarantee that the tracking errors converge to zero asymptotically except the system is in a steady-state regime. Therefore, the SMC is added to the control scheme to ensure the convergence by minimizing the estimation errors of the observer. The proposed iPIDSMC controller is tested in the presence of different parameter variations and external disturbances on an inverted pendulum - cart (IPC), which is a highly unstable underactuated system with nonlinear coupled dynamics. The proposed controller is compared with the PID, iPID and Hierarchical Sliding Mode Control (HSMC) for a clearer evaluation. Simulation results showed that the proposed controller is extremely insensitive to parameter variations, matched and mismatched disturbances and the control signal of the proposed method is chattering-free, even though it is based on a discontinuous control action.