Advances in variable structure control

Variable Structure Control is a switching feedback control which provides a simple tool for coping with uncertain nonlinear plants. The computer technology and high-speed switching circuitry have made the implementation of VSC of increasing interest to control engineers. The control action is used in order to maintain the system state trajectory on a prescribed sliding surface. However, because of non-ideality of switching the problem of chattering arises, which constitutes a major limitation in real-world applications. Recently, research efforts have been made in order to offer modifications and extensions of the basic theory to alleviate this problem. The lecture, collecting recent results by the authors, some of which are already available separately in the literature, focuses on the Discontinuous Integral Control (DIC) method both in the continuous and discrete-time case. Some application examples both to simulated and real systems illustrate the methodological approach.