INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ROBUST AND NONLINEAR CONTROL

Int. J. Robust Nonlinear Control 2010; 20:777788

Published online 5 June 2009 in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/rnc.1470
Static output feedback sliding mode control for time-varying delay systems
with time-delayed nonlinear disturbances
X. G. Yan
1
, S. K. Spurgeon
1, ,
and C. Edwards
2
1
Instrumentation, Control and Embedded Systems Research Group, Department of Electronics, University of Kent,
Canterbury, Kent CT2 7NT, U.K.
2
Department of Engineering, University of Leicester, LE1 7RH, U.K.
SUMMARY
In this paper, a robust stabilization problem for a class of linear time-varying delay systems with disturbances is studied
using sliding mode techniques. Both matched and mismatched disturbances, involving time-varying delay, are considered.
The disturbances are nonlinear and have nonlinear bounds which are employed for the control design. A sliding surface
is designed and the stability of the corresponding sliding motion is analysed based on the Razumikhin Theorem. Then a
static output feedback sliding mode control with time delay is synthesized to drive the system to the sliding surface in nite
time. Conservatism is reduced by using features of sliding mode control and systems structure. Simulation results show the
effectiveness of the proposed approach. Copyright q 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Received 27 August 2008; Revised 3 February 2009; Accepted 31 March 2009
KEY WORDS: system with time-varying delay; static output feedback control; nonlinear disturbance; sliding mode control
1. INTRODUCTION
Time delay widely exists in the real world. In economic
systems, delays appear in a natural way since the
decisions and the effects (caused by the decision) are
separated by some time interval. In communication
systems, data transmission is always accompanied by
a non-zero time between the receiver and transmitter
of a message or a signal. Such systems belong to
the class of differential-difference equations that are

Correspondence to: S. K. Spurgeon, Instrumentation, Control and

Embedded Systems Research Group, Department of Electronics,
University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent CT2 7NT, U.K.

E-mail: s.k.spurgeon@kent.ac.uk
Contract/grant sponsor: EPSRC Grant; contract/grant number:
Reference EP/E020763/1
innite dimensional when compared with ordinary
differential equations. Sometimes the delay may affect
the system performance greatly: for example, a small
delay may destabilize a system while a large delay may
stabilize a system; chaotic behaviour may appear if the
delayed state involves a nonlinear function but in other
cases, chaotic systems may be stabilized by a delayed
feedback [1]. This shows that time-delay systems are
very complicated especially when the delay exists in
nonlinear terms. Therefore, the study of time-delay
systems is pertinent and valuable both from theoretical
and applications perspectives.
As early as the 18th century, time-delay systems
have been studied (see the survey paper [2]). Since
Krasovskii extended the Lyapunov theory to time-delay
systems [3] and Razumikhin proposed a method to
avoid the functional in Lyapunov stability analysis [4],
great progress has been made but most of the early
Copyright q 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
778 X. G. YAN, S. K. SPURGEON AND C. EDWARDS
work focused on the analysis of unforced time-delay
systems. In more recent years, the advancement of
control theory and control engineering has motivated
the study of control systems. For systems affected by
time delay, contributions have considered cases where
the delay may appear in the system state, input, output
and disturbances experienced by the system [57]. A
variety of control approaches such as sliding mode
control, H

control, back-stepping techniques, adap-

tive control, etc. have been applied to the control of
systems with time delay and many important results
have been achieved [69].
It is well known that sliding mode control, as one
of the discontinuous control approaches, is completely
robust to the so-called matched disturbances [10, 11].
This has motivated the application of sliding mode
techniques to time-delay systems with disturbance
[6, 7, 1215]. Most of the existing results are observer
based or based on the fact that all of the system
state variables are accessible [6, 7, 12, 16]. However,
system state variables are often not fully available.
It is possible to establish an observer to estimate
the delayed system state variables and then apply an
observer-based scheme [12, 16]. However, this will
require more hardware and increase system dimen-
sion. Therefore, static output feedback control may
be preferable. Compared with state feedback, the
static output feedback control problem is much more
difcult, even for systems without delay [17]. Much
less attention has been paid to time-delay systems
with delayed disturbance using static output feedback
sliding mode control and only very limited literature
is available [15, 13]. A sliding mode control is given
in [14] where an output tracking problem is consid-
ered. Luo et al. studied a class of time-delay systems
where static and dynamic output feedback strategies
are both considered [15] but it is required that all of
the uncertainty is matched. Janardhanan and Bandy-
opadhyay [13] proposed a static output sliding mode
control scheme for time-delay systems where only a
class of linear discrete-time system is considered. In
all the existing results for time-delay systems, it is
required that the bounds on the uncertainties satisfy
the linear growth condition (i.e. linear functions of
x and/or x(t d)). Since bounds on uncertainties
may have nonlinear forms in reality [18], it is pertinent
to consider the case when the bounds on disturbances
are nonlinear.
In this paper, a static output feedback sliding
mode control strategy is proposed to stabilize a class
of time-varying delay systems with time-delayed
nonlinear disturbances. Both matched and mismatched
uncertainties are considered where the bounds on the
uncertainties involving time delay are employed in
control design. A sliding surface without memory is
designed and the system structure is analyzed and
employed in the stability analysis of the sliding motion
by using the RazumikhinLyapunov approach. Then,
a sliding mode control with time delay based on only
output information is proposed to drive the system to
the designed sliding surface in nite time and maintain
a sliding motion on it thereafter. As in [19, 20], the
bounds on the structural unknown disturbances are
allowed to be nonlinear but unlike [19, 20] time-varying
delay exists in the system considered, the disturbances
and the bounds on the disturbances. The robustness
is enhanced by fully using the bounds on the distur-
bances. The conservatism is reduced by employing
system structure and the feature that sliding mode is
reduced order. A numerical example is presented to
illustrate the approach obtained in this paper.
Notation: In this paper, R
+
denotes the nonnegative
number set {t |t 0}. The symbol C
[a,b]
represents the
set of R
n
-valued continuous function on [a, b]. The set
of nm matrices with elements dened in R will be
denoted by R
nm
and I
n
denotes the unit matrix with
dimension n. For a matrix AR
nm
, Im(A) denotes
the range space of A. The expression A>0 means that
A is symmetric positive denite and z
max
(A)(z
min
(A))
represents its maximum (minimum) eigenvalue. For a
matrix A>0, A
1/2
denotes a symmetric positive denite
matrix such that A
1/2
A
1/2
= A. Finally, denotes the
Euclidean norm or its induced norm.
2. PRELIMINARIES
First, recall some basic linear system theory. Consider
a linear system
x = Ax +Bu (1)
y =Cx (2)
Copyright q 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Robust Nonlinear Control 2010; 20:777788
DOI: 10.1002/rnc
STATIC OUTPUT FEEDBACK SLIDING MODE CONTROL 779
where x R
n
, u R
m
, y R
p
are the states, inputs
and outputs, respectively, with mp<n. The triple
(A, B, C) comprises constant matrices of appropriate
dimensions where both B and C are of full rank.
For system (1) and (2), it is assumed that rank(CB)=
m. Then, from [21] it can be shown that a coordinate
transformation x =

T x exists such that the system triple

(A, B, C) with respect to the new coordinates x has the
following structure:

A=
_

A
11

A
12

A
21

A
22
_
,

B=
_
0

B
2
_
,

C=[0

C
2
] (3)
where

A
11
R
(nm)(nm)
,

B
2
R
mm
is nonsingular
and

C
2
R
pp
is orthogonal. Further, it is assumed
that system (

A
11
,

A
12
,

C
1
) with

C
1
dened by

C
1
=[0
( pm)(np)
I
pm
] (4)
is output feedback stabilizable, i.e. there exists a matrix
K R
m( pm)
such that

A
11

A
12
K

C
1
is stable.
It is shown in [21] that a necessary condition for
(

A
11
,

A
12
,

C
1
) to be stabilizable is that the invariant
zeros of (A, B, C) lie in the open left half-plane.
Let
F =F
2
[K I
m
]

C
T
2
(5)
where F
2
R
mm
is any nonsingular matrix. If a
further coordinate change is introduced based on the
nonsingular transformation z =

Tx with

T dened by

T =
_
I
nm
0
K

C
1
I
m
_
then in the new coordinates z, system (1) and (2) has
the following form:

A=
_
A
11
A
12
A
21
A
22
_
,

B=
_
0
B
2
_
,

C=[0 C
2
] (6)
where A
11
=

A
11

A
12
K

C
1
is stable, C
2
R
pp
is
nonsingular and

C satises
F

C=[0 F
2
] (7)
where F
2
R
mm
is nonsingular. In the new coordinate
system z, the system output is described by
y =

Cz (8)
For convenience, the following denition is introduced:
Denition 1
The matrix triple (A, B, C) or linear system (1)(2)
is called normalizable if there exists a nonsingular
transformation z =T x such that in the new coordinate
system z, the system (1) and (2) has the following form:
z
1
= A
11
z
1
+A
12
z
2
(9)
z
2
= A
21
z
1
+A
22
z
2
+B
2
u (10)
y =[0 C
2
]z (11)
where z
1
R
nm
, z
2
R
m
, A
11
is stable, and B
2

R
mm
and C
2
R
pp
are nonsingular. Then (9)(11)
is called the canonical form of system (1) and (2).
From the analysis above the following conclusion is
obtained immediately
Lemma 1
System (1) and (2) is normalizable if (i) rank(CB)=
m, (ii) for the triple (

A
11
,

A
12
,

C
1
) dened by (3)
and (4), there exists a matrix K such that

A
11

A
12
K

C
1
is stable.
Proof
By letting T =

T, the conclusion follows directly from

the analysis above.
Remark 1
Lemma 1 gives a sufcient condition under which
system (1) and (2) is normalizable. If the conditions
(i) and (ii) in Lemma 1 hold, then the canonical form
(9)(11) can be obtained from a systematic algorithm
[11] together with any output feedback pole placement
algorithm of choice.
Denition 2 (see, Gu et al. [22])
A continuous function :: [0, a)[0, ) is said
to belong to class K if it is strictly increasing and
:(0)=0. Further, it is said to belong to class K

if
a = and lim
r
:(r)=.
Consider a time-delay system
x(t )=

f (t, x(t d(t ))) (12)
with an initial condition
x(t )=[(t ), t [d, 0]
Copyright q 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Robust Nonlinear Control 2010; 20:777788
DOI: 10.1002/rnc
780 X. G. YAN, S. K. SPURGEON AND C. EDWARDS
where

f : R
+
C
[d,0]
R
n
takes R(bounded sets
of C
[d,0]
) into bounded sets in R
n
, d(t ) is the time-
varying delay and d :=sup
t R
+{d(t )}<.
Lemma 2 (Razumikhin Theorem, Gu et al. [22])
If there exist class K

functions
i
() with i =1, 2,
a class K function
3
() and a continuous function
V
1
(): [d, ]R
n
R
+
satisfying

1
(x)V
1
(t, x)
2
(x), t [d, ], x R
n
such that the time derivative of V
1
along the solution
of system (12) satises

V
1
(t, x)
3
(x) whenever
V
1
(t +0, x(t +0))V
1
(t, x(t )) (13)
for any 0[d, 0], then system(12) is uniformly stable.
If, in addition,
3
(t)>0 for t>0, and there exists a
continuous nondecreasing function
4
() which satises

4
(t)>t for t>0 such that inequality (13) is strength-
ened to

V
1
(t, x)
3
(x) whenever
V
1
(t +0, x(t +0))
4
(V
1
(t, x(t ))) (14)
for any 0[d, 0], then system (12) is uniformly
asymptotically stable.
From Lemma 2. the following conclusion can be
obtained directly:
Lemma 3
If there exist constants >0 and >1 and a function
V
2
(x(t ))=x
T

Px with

P>0 such that the time deriva-
tive of V
2
() along the solution of system (12) satises

V
2
|
(12)

P
1/2
x(t )
2
(15)
whenever

P
1/2
x(t +0)

P
1/2
x(t ) for any 0
[d, 0], then, system (12) is uniformly asymptotically
stable.
Proof
From the denition of V
2
() it follows that
z
min
(

P)x
2
V
2
(t, x(t ))z
max
(

P)x
2
and from (15)

V
2
|
(12)
x(t )
T

Px(t )z
max
(

P)x
2
It is clear that V
2
(x(t +0))
2
V
2
(x(t )) is equivalent to

P
1/2
x(t +0)

P
1/2
x(t ).
Then from Lemma 2 and

P>0, the conclu-
sion follows by letting
1
(t)=z
min
(

P)t
2
,
2
(t)=
z
max
(

P)t
2
,
3
(t)=z
min
(

P)t
2
and
4
(t)=
2
t in
Lemma 2.
The lemmas presented in this section will be used in
the following analysis.
3. SYSTEM DESCRIPTION AND PROBLEM
FORMULATION
Consider a time-varying delay system with time-
delayed disturbance described by
x(t ) = Ax(t )+A
0
x(t d(t ))+B(u(t )
+g(t, x(t ), x(t d(t ))))
+ f (t, x(t ), x(t d(t ))) (16)
y(t ) =Cx(t ) (17)
where x R
n
( is an neighborhood of the origin),
u R
m
and y R
p
are system states, inputs and
outputs, respectively, with mp<n. The matrices
A, A
0
, B and C represent constant matrices of appro-
priate dimensions with B and C of full rank. The
vectors g() and f () represent the matched and
mismatched disturbances affecting the system, respec-
tively. The known function d(t ) is a time-varying delay
which is assumed to be continuous, nonnegative and
bounded in R
+
, that is, d :=sup
t R
+{d(t )}<. The
initial condition for the system is given by
x(t )=[(t ), t [d, 0]
where [() is continuous in [d, 0]. It is assumed that
the nonlinear functions g() and f () are smooth enough
in their domain of denition such that the system has
unique continuous solutions for the initial condition.
Copyright q 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Robust Nonlinear Control 2010; 20:777788
DOI: 10.1002/rnc
STATIC OUTPUT FEEDBACK SLIDING MODE CONTROL 781
First, it is necessary to impose some basic assump-
tions on system (16)(17):
Assumption 1
The triple (A, B, C) is normalizable, and Im(A
0
)
Im(B).
Remark 2
Assumption 1 is a limitation on the linear part of system
(16)(17). It guarantees that the triple (A, B, C) can be
transformed to a canonical form (9)(11). The assump-
tion Im(A
0
)Im(B) means that the time-delay term
A
0
x(t d(t )) is matched and thus it will not affect the
sliding motion.
Assumption 2
There exist known continuous nonnegative func-
tions j
i
(): R
+
R
p
R
p
R
+
with i =1, 2 and
=(): R
+
R
p
R
p
R
+
such that for t R
+
, and
x(t ), x(t d)
f (t, x(t ), x(t d(t ))
j
1
(t, y(t ), y(t d(t )))x(t )
+j
2
(t, y(t ), y(t d(t )))x(t d(t )) (18)
g(t, x(t ), x(t d(t ))=(t, y(t ), y(t d(t ))) (19)
Remark 3
Assumption 2 requires that the uncertainties are
bounded by some known continuous functions. It is an
extension of the existing results [13, 15, 23] where it is
required that the uncertainty is bounded by the linear
combination of y(t ) and y(t d) which is called
the linear growth condition.
In this paper, the objective is to design a static output
feedback control with time delay of the form
u =u(t, y(t ), y(t d)) (20)
based-on sliding mode techniques such that the closed-
loop system formed by the control (20) and the system
(16) and (17) is uniformly asymptotically stable in
a domain of the origin even in the presence of the
disturbances. Notably the control (20) only depends on
system output y(t ) and time delay d(t ). Since d(t ) is
assumed to be known in this paper, the term y(t d(t ))
is available and thus the control (20) is called static
output feedback control with time delay.
Remark 4
As in the work in [8, 15, 24, 25], the delay experienced
by the system is assumed to be known, which may
limit its application. However, in some important
industrial systems such as ow through pipes and
web forming processes, the delay existing in the
process is known, and can thus be employed in the
control design and/or the compensator design [25].
Furthermore, the approach proposed in [26] enables
the time delay to be identied in some cases even
when the delay is unknown.
It is well known that the sliding mode control tech-
nique consists of two steps: (i) design of the sliding
surface such that the system possesses the required
performance when it is restricted to the surface and (ii)
design of a variable structure control which drives the
system trajectory to the sliding surface in nite time
and maintains a sliding motion on it. The following
section will consider these two steps.
4. SLIDING MOTION ANALYSIS AND
CONTROL DESIGN
In this section, the main results will be presented.
From Im(A
0
)Im(B) in Assumption 1, there exists
a matrix DR
mn
such that A
0
=BD. Then, from
Section 2, it follows that under Assumption 1 there
exists a coordinate transformation z =T x such that
in the new coordinate system z, system (16)(17) is
described by
z
1
= A
11
z
1
+A
12
z
2
+ f
1
(t, z(t ), z(t d(t ))) (21)
z
2
= A
21
z
1
+A
22
z
2
+B
2
DT
1
z(t d(t ))
+B
2
(u+g(t, T
1
z(t ), T
1
z(t d(t ))))
+ f
2
(t, z(t ), z(t d(t ))) (22)
y =[0 C
2
]z (23)
Copyright q 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Robust Nonlinear Control 2010; 20:777788
DOI: 10.1002/rnc
782 X. G. YAN, S. K. SPURGEON AND C. EDWARDS
where A
11
R
(nm)(nm)
is stable, B
2
R
mm
and
C
2
R
pp
are nonsingular, and
_
f
1
(t, z(t ), z(t d(t )))
f
2
(t, z(t ), z(t d(t )))
_
:=T[ f (t, x(t ), x(t d(t )))]
x=T
1
z
(24)
where f
1
()R
nm
and f
2
()R
m
.
Remark 5
Since the coordinate transfer matrix T can be obtained
using a systematic approach given in [11], the system in
(21)(23) is well dened and can be directly obtained
from system (16) and (17).
Consider the following sliding surface for system
(16)(17):
S ={x|FCx =0} (25)
where F is dened in (5). Then from (7) and (8), it
follows that
FCx =Fy =F

Cz =[0 F
2
]z =F
2
z
2
Since F
2
is nonsingular, it follows that in the z coor-
dinate system the sliding surface (25) can be described
by the equation
z
2
=0 (26)
Then from the canonical form (21)(23), it follows that
the sliding dynamics associated with the sliding surface
(25) are described by
z
1
= A
11
z
1
+[ f
1
(t, z(t ), z(t d(t )))]
z
2
(t )=0
(27)
where z
1
R
nm
are the sliding mode state variables
and A
11
is stable. It is clear that the mismatched
disturbance affects the sliding motion directly. Obvi-
ously system (27) that describes the sliding motion
involves time delay. The following further assumption
is required:
Assumption 3
There exist known continuous functions [
1
() and [
2
()
such that
[ f
1
(t, z(t ), z(t d(t )))]
z
2
(t )=0

[
1
(t, z
1
(t ), z
1
(t d))z
1
(t )
+[
2
(t, z
1
(t ), z
1
(t d))z
1
(t d(t )) (28)
where the function [
1
(t,r
1
,r
2
) and [
2
(t,r
1
,r
2
) are
both nondecreasing about variables r
2
.
Remark 6
Assumption 3 is a limitation on the mismatched distur-
bance. It implies that when a sliding motion takes
place, the uncertainty f
1
can be bounded by a known
continuous function of variables z
1
(t ) and z
1
(t d(t )).
It should be noted that Assumption 3 is unnecessary
if the disturbance f () in (16) does not include time
delay [20].
Since the matrix A
11
in (27) is stable, it follows
that for any Q>0 (QR
mm
), there exists an unique
matrix P>0 such that
A
T
11
P+PA
11
=Q (29)
For the later analysis, the following lemma is presented:
Lemma 4
If Assumption 3 holds, then there exist known contin-
uous functions
1
() and
2
() such that
P
1/2
[ f
1
(t, z(t ), z(t d(t )))]
z
2
(t )=0

1
(t, z
1
(t ), z
1
(t d))P
1/2
z
1
(t )
+
2
(t, z
1
(t ), z
1
(t d))
P
1/2
z
1
(t d(t )) (30)
where the functions
1
(t,r
1
,r
2
) and
2
(t,r
1
,r
2
) are
both nondecreasing about variables r
2
.
Proof
It follows from the fact
z
1
(t ) z
max
(P
1/2
)P
1/2
z
1
(t ) and
z
1
(t d(t )) z
max
(P
1/2
)P
1/2
z
1
(t d(t )) (31)
that under Assumption 3
P
1/2
[ f
1
(t, z(t ), z(t d(t )))]
z
2
(t )=0

z
max
(P
1/2
)([
1
(t, z
1
(t ), z
1
(t d))z
1
(t )
+[
2
(t, z
1
(t ), z
1
(t d))z
1
(t d(t )))
z
max
(P
1/2
)([
1
(t, z
1
(t ), z
1
(t d(t )))
z
max
(P
1/2
)P
1/2
z
1
(t )
Copyright q 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Robust Nonlinear Control 2010; 20:777788
DOI: 10.1002/rnc
STATIC OUTPUT FEEDBACK SLIDING MODE CONTROL 783
+[
2
(t, z
1
(t ), z
1
(t d(t )))
z
max
(P
1/2
)P
1/2
z
1
(t d(t ))) (32)
Let

1
(t,r
1
,r
2
)=z
max
(P
1/2
)z
max
(P
1/2
)[
1
(t,r
1
,r
2
)
and

2
(t,r
1
,r
2
)=z
max
(P
1/2
)z
max
(P
1/2
)[
2
(t,r
1
,r
2
)
Then it follows that (28) is true and the functions

1
(t,r
1
,r
2
) and
2
(t,r
1
,r
2
) are both nondecreasing
about variables r
2
since [
1
(t,r
1
,r
2
) and [
2
(t,r
1
,r
2
)
are both nondecreasing about variables r
2
. Hence, the
conclusion follows.
The following theorem that gives a sufcient condi-
tion under which the sliding motion is stable, can be
presented.
Theorem 1
Under Assumption 3, the sliding mode dynamics (27)
are uniformly asymptotically stable if there exists a
domain
0
={z
1
|z
1
R
nm
} of the origin in T()
and a constant >1 such that for any z
1
(t )
0
and
t R
+
:=z
min
(P
1/2
QP
1/2
)
sup
t R
+
,z
1
(t )
0
{(t, z
1
(t ))}>0 (33)
where
(t, z
1
(t ))
:=
1
(t, z
1
(t ), z
max
(P
1/2
)P
1/2
z
1
(t ))
+
2
(t, z
1
(t ), z
max
(P
1/2
)P
1/2
z
1
(t )) (34)
where
1
() and
2
() satisfy (30), and P and
Q satisfy (29).
Proof
For system (27), consider as a Lyapunov function
candidate V(z
1
(t ))=(z
1
(t ))
T
Pz
1
(t ). It follows from
(28) and (29) that the time derivative of V along the
trajectories of system (27) is given as

V(z
1
(t ))|
(27)
=(z
1
(t ))
T
(A
T
11
P+PA
11
)z
1
(t )
+2(z
1
(t ))
T
P[ f
1
(t, z(t ), z(t d(t )))]
z
2
(t )=0
=(z
1
(t ))
T
P
1/2
(P
1/2
QP
1/2
)P
1/2
z
1
(t )
+2(z
1
(t ))
T
P
1/2
P
1/2
[ f
1
(t, z(t ), z(t d(t )))]
z
2
(t )=0
z
min
(P
1/2
QP
1/2
)P
1/2
z
1
(t )
2
+P
1/2
z
1
(
1
(t, z
1
(t ), z
1
(t d))P
1/2
z
1
(t )
+
2
(t, z
1
(t ), z
1
(t d))P
1/2
z
1
(t d(t )))
(35)
where Lemma 4 has been used to obtain the above.
Since
1
(t,r
1
,r
2
) and
2
(t,r
1
,r
2
) are both nonde-
creasing about variables r
2
, it follows from (31) that

1
(t, z
1
(t ), z
1
(t d))

1
(t, z
1
(t ), z
max
(P
1/2
)P
1/2
z
1
(t d(t ))) (36)

2
(t, z
1
(t ), z
1
(t d))

2
(t, z
1
(t ), z
max
(P
1/2
)P
1/2
z
1
(t d(t ))) (37)
When P
1/2
z
1
(t +0)P
1/2
z
1
(t ) for any 0
[d, 0] and some >1, by substituting (36) and (37)
to (35), it follows that

V(z
1
(t ))|
(27)
z
min
(P
1/2
QP
1/2
)P
1/2
z
1
(t )
2
+
1
(t, z
1
(t ), z
max
(P
1/2
)
P
1/2
z
1
(t d(t )))P
1/2
z
1
(t )
2
+
2
(t, z
1
(t ), z
max
(P
1/2
)P
1/2
z
1
(t d(t )))
P
1/2
z
1
(t )P
1/2
z
1
(t d(t ))
z
min
(P
1/2
QP
1/2
)P
1/2
z
1
(t )
2
Copyright q 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Robust Nonlinear Control 2010; 20:777788
DOI: 10.1002/rnc
784 X. G. YAN, S. K. SPURGEON AND C. EDWARDS
+
1
(t, z
1
(t ), z
max
(P
1/2
)P
1/2
z
1
(t ))
P
1/2
z
1
(t )
2
+
2
(t, z
1
(t ), z
max
(P
1/2
)
P
1/2
z
1
(t ))P
1/2
z
1
(t )
2
=(z
min
(P
1/2
QP
1/2
)(t, z
1
(t )))
P
1/2
z
1
(t )
2
P
1/2
z
1
(t )
2
(38)
Hence, the conclusion follows directly from Lemma 3.

Remark 7
From Theorem 1, it follows that the stability of the
sliding motion is completely robust to the matched
uncertainty g() but is affected by the mismatched
uncertainty f (). Since the sliding mode is a reduced-
order system, it is clear that only f
1
() affects the
sliding mode and thus in the proposed conguration
the limitation on the mismatched uncertainty is weaker
than in other work [8, 9, 23] where a similar limitation
is imposed on f () instead of f
1
().
Remark 8
From the proof of Theorem 1, it follows that in order to
establish the stability of the sliding motion, it is neces-
sary to estimate P
1/2
[ f
1
(t, z(t ), z(t d(t )))]
z
2
(t )=0
which involves uncertainty and a time-varying delay.
It should be pointed out that when the structure of f
1
is available, (30) may give a less conservative bound
than (28).
Theorem 1 above has shown that, under appropriate
conditions, the sliding motion on sliding surface (25)
is stable. The objective now is to design a controller
to drive the system to the sliding surface in nite time.
Comparing the linear part of system (16) and (17) with
the linear part of system (21)(23), it follows that
CT
1
=[0 C
2
], T B=
_
0
B
2
_
where C
2
R
pp
and B
2
R
mm
are nonsingular.
From (6) and (7), it follows that
FCB=FCT
1
TB=F [0 C
2
]
. ,, .

C
_
0
B
2
_
=[0 F
2
]
_
0
B
2
_
= F
2
B
2
is nonsingular since both F
2
R
mm
and B
2
R
mm
are nonsingular. Partition the matrices AT
1
, A
0
T
1
and T as
AT
1
:= [
1

2
], A
0
T
1
:=[
1

2
]
T :=
_
T
1
T
2
_
(39)
where
1
R
nm
and
1
R
nm
are the rst m
columns of AT
1
and A
0
T
1
, respectively; T
1
R
mn
and T
2
R
(nm)n
are the rst m and the last nm
rows of T. Then, from the analysis above,
T x =
_
T
1
x
T
2
x
_
=
_
z
1
z
2
_
=
_
T
1
x
C
1
2
y
_
(40)
Now, consider system (16)(17) in
1

2
where

1
:= {x(t )|T
1
xj
1
}

2
:= {x(t d(t ))|T
1
x(t d(t ))j
2
}
(41)
and T
1
is dened in (39). Then the following output
feedback sliding mode controller with time delay is
proposed for the system
u =k(t, y(t ), y(t d(t )))(FCB)
1
sgn(Fy(t )) (42)
where sgn is the usual signum vector function and the
scalar function k() is dened by
k(t, y(t ), y(t d(t )))
=
1
j
1
+
2
C
1
2
y
+FCB=(t, y(t ), y(t d(t )))
+FCT
1
(j
1
(t, y(t ), y(t d(t )))
(j
1
+C
1
2
y(t ))+j
2
(t, y(t ), y(t d(t )))
(j
2
+C
1
2
y(t d(t )))+p (43)
for some p>0 where matrices
1
and
2
are dened
by (39), the positive constants j
1
and j
2
are given in
(41), and the functions =(), j
1
() and j
2
() are given
in Assumption 2.
Remark 9
From the analysis above, it is clear to see that the
sliding mode controller (42) with k() dened by (43) is
Copyright q 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Robust Nonlinear Control 2010; 20:777788
DOI: 10.1002/rnc
STATIC OUTPUT FEEDBACK SLIDING MODE CONTROL 785
well dened since the matrix FCB is nonsingular and
the functions =(), j
1
() and j
2
() are assumed to be
known. Obviously, the proposed control only depends
on the time t , the known time delay d(t ) and system
output y(t ).
Theorem 2
Consider system (16)(17) in
1

2
. Under Assump-
tions 1 and 2, the controller (42) with the gain k()
dened by (43) drives the system (16)(17) to the
sliding surface (25) in nite time and maintains a sliding
motion on it thereafter.
Proof
Let o(x):=FCx. Then the sliding surface (25) can be
described by equation o(x)=0. From (16) and (42), it
follows that
o
T
(x) o(x)
=o
T
(x)FC(Ax(t )+A
0
x(t d(t ))+B(u(t )
+g(t, x(t ), x(t d(t ))))+ f (t, x(t ), x(t d(t ))))
o(x)(FC(Ax(t )+A
0
x(t d))+FCB
g(t, x(t ), x(t d(t )))
+FC f (t, x(t ), x(t d(t ))))
k(t, y(t ), y(t d(t )))o(x) (44)
where the fact that o
T
(x)sgn(o(x))=o(x) is used
above. From (40) it follows that in
1

2
dened by
(41),
T x(t ) j
1
+C
1
2
y(t )
T x(t d(t )) j
2
+C
1
2
y(t d(t ))
(45)
From (39) and (40),
FC(Ax(t )+A
0
x(t d(t )))
=FC(AT
1
T x(t )+A
0
T
1
T x(t d(t )))
=FC
_
[
1

2
]
_
T
1
x
C
1
2
y
_
+[
1

2
]
_
T
1
x(t d)
C
1
2
y(t d)
__
=FC
1
T
1
x +FC
2
C
1
2
y +FC
1
T
1
x(t d)
+FC
2
C
1
2
y(t d)
Therefore, from (45),
FC(Ax(t )+A
0
x(t d(t )))
FC
1
j
1
+FC
2
C
1
2
y(t )+FC
1
j
2
+FC
2
C
1
2
y(t d) (46)
From (18) and (45)
f (t, x(t ), x(t d(t )))
j
1
(t, y(t ), y(t d(t )))T
1
T x(t )
+j
2
(t, y(t ), y(t d(t )))T
1
T x(t d(t ))
T
1
(j
1
(t, y(t ), y(t d(t )))
(j
1
+C
1
2
y(t ))+j
2
(t, y(t ), y(t d(t )))
(j
2
+C
1
2
y(t d(t )))) (47)
Substituting (19), (46), (47) and (43) to (44) yields
o
T
(x) o(x)po(x)
This shows that the reachability condition [10, 11] is
satised and thus the conclusion follows.
Theorems 1 and 2 together show that the closed-
loop system formed by applying control (42) with k()
dened by (43) to system (16) and (17) is uniformly
asymptotically stable.
Remark 10
In this paper, coordinate transformations are employed
to derive the regular form and the sliding mode
dynamics, enabling the stability of the sliding motion
to be analysed. It should be noted that only static
output feedback control is considered in this paper.
In the control design, a state transformation (40) is
introduced to separate the known parts C
1
2
y(t ) and
C
1
2
y(t d(t )) from T x(t ) and T x(t d(t )), respec-
tively, so that they can be used in the control design
to reduce conservatism and avoid unnecessary control
action. This ensures that the conclusion holds, possibly
Copyright q 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Robust Nonlinear Control 2010; 20:777788
DOI: 10.1002/rnc
786 X. G. YAN, S. K. SPURGEON AND C. EDWARDS
in an unbounded domain, since the constraint (41) only
corresponds to a subset of the state variables.
5. NUMERICAL SIMULATION
Consider the time-varying delay system with delayed
disturbance described by
x =

10 1 0
1 0 0
0 1 5

. ,, .
A
x +

0 0 0
1 0 1
0 0 0

. ,, .
A
0
x(t d(t ))
+

0
1
0

. ,, .
B
(u(t )+g(t, x(t ), x(t d(t ))))
+

2[
1
(t, x(t ), x(t d(t )))x
1
(t )+[
2
(t, x(t ), x(t d(t )))x
1
(t d(t ))
0
[
1
(t, x(t ), x(t d(t )))x
3
(t )+[
2
(t, x(t ), x(t d(t )))x
3
(t d(t ))

. ,, .
f (t,x(t ),x(t d(t )))
(48)
y =
_
0 0 1
0 1 0
_
. ,, .
C
x (49)
where x =col(x
1
, x
2
, x
3
), u and y =col(y
1
, y
2
) are,
respectively, the state variables, the inputs and the
outputs of the system. The unknown functions [
1
() and
[
2
() are time-delayed disturbances that are assumed
to satisfy
|[
1
()| (y
2
(t ))
2
| sin y
1
(t d(t ))|
|[
2
()| |y
1
(t d(t ))| sin
2
y
1
(t )+(y
2
(t ))
2
The matched delayed disturbance g() has unknown
structure but satises
g()y
4
2
(t )sin
2
y
1
(t d(t ))
. ,, .
=()
The domain considered here is
={(x
1
, x
2
, x
3
)|x
2
R,
1
2
x
2
1
+x
2
3
<12}
Obviously,
f (t, x(t ), x(t d(t )))

2(y
2
(t ))
2
| sin y
1
(t d(t ))|
. ,, .
j
1
()
x(t )
+(|y
1
(t d(t ))| sin
2
y
1
(t )+(y
2
(t ))
2
)
. ,, .
j
2
()
x(t d(t ))
and Assumption 2 holds.
Clearly, CB=[0 1]
T
is full rank. According to the
algorithm given in [21], the coordinate transformation
x =

T x with

T =

1 0 0
0 0 1
0 1 0

transforms the triple (A, B, C) into the following form:

_

A
11

A
12

A
21

A
22
_
=

10 0 1
0 5 1
1 0 0

_
0

B
2
_
=

0
0
1

, [0

C
2
] =[0 I
2
]
(50)
Copyright q 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Robust Nonlinear Control 2010; 20:777788
DOI: 10.1002/rnc
STATIC OUTPUT FEEDBACK SLIDING MODE CONTROL 787
It is clear that the triple (A, B, C) is output feedback
normalizable with the choice K =0 due to the stability
of

A
11
. Further Im(A
0
)Im(B) since A
0
=BD with
D=[1 0 1]. Therefore, Assumption 1 is satised.
Since (50) already has the canonical form (9)(11),
it follows that T =

T, A
11
=

A
11
, A
12
=

A
12
, A
21
=

A
21
, A
22
=

A
22
, B
2
=

B
2
, C
2
=

C
2
=I
2
. Let Q=10I
2
.
It follows that the Lyapunov equation (29) has a
unique solution P =diag{0.5, 1} and thus P
1/2
=diag
{

2/2, 1}. According to [21], choose F=[0 1]. The

designed sliding surface from (25) is then described by
S(x)={(x
1
, x
2
, x
3
)|y
2
=0} (51)
By direct computation, it follows from (24) that
f
1
=
_
2 0
0 1
_
[
1
()P
1/2
z
1
(t )
+
_

2 0
0 1
_
[
2
()P
1/2
z
1
(t d(t )) (52)
When sliding motion takes place, y
2
(t )=0, and thus
we have
[
1
()=0, |[
2
()|y
1
(t d(t ))| sin
2
y
1
(t )
Then,
P
1/2
[ f
1
(t, z(t ), z(t d(t )))]
z
2
(t )=0

z
1
(t d(t ))(sin y
1
(t ))
2
P
1/2
z
1
(t d(t )) (53)
By comparing (53) with (30), it follows that
1
()=0
and
2
()=z
1
(t d(t ))(sin y
1
(t ))
2
. Therefore,
(t, z
1
(t ))=
2

2(sin y
1
(t ))
2
P
1/2
z(t )
Let =1.01. By direct computation, it follows that
>0.0026>0 in T(), and thus the conditions of
Theorem 1 hold in the domain T(). From (42) and
(43), the control is given as follows:
u =(10.0499j
1
+
_
(y
2
(t ))
2
+(y
2
(t )5y
1
(t ))
2
+y
4
2
(t )sin
2
y
1
(t d(t ))+

2(y
2
(t ))
2
| sin y
1
(t d(t ))|(j
1
+y)
+(|y
1
(t d(t ))| sin
2
y
1
(t )
+(y
2
(t ))
2
)(j
2
+y(t d(t )))+p)sgn(y
2
(t )) (54)
0 1 2 3 4 5
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
time [sec]
s
t
a
t
e
s
x
1
x
2
x
3
Figure 1. The time responses of the state variables of system
(48)(49) under control (54).
0 1 2 3 4 5
0
20
40
60
time [sec]
c
o
n
t
r
o
l
0 1 2 3 4 5
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
time [sec]
s
l
i
d
i
n
g

f
u
n
c
t
i
o
n
Figure 2. The time responses of control signal (54) (upper)
and sliding function (bottom).
For implementation purposes, choose j
1
=j
2
=2 and
p=1. The time-varying delay d(t ) is chosen as d(t )=
2+sint . A simulation with the initial condition [(t )=
(cos(t ), 1, 2sin(t )) is shown in Figures 1 and 2 and
conrms that the proposed approach is effective.
6. CONCLUSIONS
A robust static output feedback sliding mode controller
has been developed to stabilize a class of time-varying
Copyright q 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Robust Nonlinear Control 2010; 20:777788
DOI: 10.1002/rnc
788 X. G. YAN, S. K. SPURGEON AND C. EDWARDS
delay systems in this paper. An approach to deal with
nonlinear matched and mismatched disturbances is
shown when time-varying delay is involved in the
nonlinear bounds on the disturbances. Compared with
existing results, the nonlinear bounds are fully used
in the control design. The conservatism is reduced
by using the system structure and the property that
the sliding mode dynamics are of reduced-order. The
advantages of the approach when compared with the
existing literature have been highlighted. Simulations
have shown the effectiveness of the proposed control
scheme.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of EPSRC
for this work via grant reference EP/E020763/1 entitled
Robust Output Feedback Sliding Mode Control for Time-
delay Systems.
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Copyright q 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Robust Nonlinear Control 2010; 20:777788
DOI: 10.1002/rnc