Design of decentralised variable structure observer for mismatched nonlinear uncertain large-scale systems

Although the state feedback approach is quite popular in control engineering, it cannot be used while the system states cannot be measured. The state observer approach may be used to overcome such a shortcoming. Also, most control systems have become larger and more complicated; therefore, based on the variable structure control theory, a new decentralised variable structure observer (DVSO) for a class of nonlinear large-scale systems with mismatched uncertainties will be considered in this article. The switching surface function is determined such that the equivalent system will have the desired behaviour once the system reaches the switching surface. And then a new DVSO is designed such that the estimated states will approach the system states. Using the Lyapunov stability theory and using the generalised matrix inverse concept, the uncertain nonlinear error system trajectories can be driven onto the sliding manifold and then the existence of a sliding mode and the attractiveness to the sliding surface is ensured. With the proposed DVSO, the estimation errors asymptotically tend to zero if the matching condition is satisfied, and the effects of the mismatched parts can be uniformly ultimately bounded if the matching condition is not satisfied. Finally, a numerical example with a succession of computer simulations is given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.