Model Reference DSMC With a Relative Degree Two Switching Variable

Reaching-law-based discrete sliding mode controllers are well known to be easy to tune and robust with respect to disturbance. In recent years, it has been demonstrated that their robustness can be further enhanced with the use of arbitrary relative degree sliding variables. However, reaching laws using such variables only ensure a good sliding mode performance of the system when the perturbations affecting the plant are matched, which is a very restrictive assumption. To address this issue and to further improve robustness of the plant, in this article, we propose a new model reference approach for strategies with relative degree two sliding variables. In the proposed approach, the reaching law is first used to control the evolution of a disturbance-free model of the plant, and then, the original system state is driven toward that of the model with a secondary controller. It will be shown that the proposed approach ensures better system robustness compared to the conventional reaching law approach and that it does not require the assumption about matched uncertainties.