Composite disturbance‐observer‐based control and H∞ control for complex continuous models

Abstract A novel type of control scheme combining the disturbance‐observer‐based control (DOBC) with H ∞ control is proposed for a class of complex continuous models with disturbances. The disturbances are supposed to include two parts. One part in the input channel is generated by an exogenous system with uncertainty, which can represent the harmonic signals with modeling perturbations. The other part is supposed to have the bounded H 2 ‐norm. Parametric uncertainties exist both in concerned plant and in exogenous subsystem. The disturbance observers based on regional pole placement and D‐stability theory are designed and integrated with conventional H ∞ control laws. The new composite DOBC and H ∞ control scheme is applied to complex continuous models for the case with known and unknown nonlinearity, respectively. Then the first type of disturbances can be estimated and rejected, and the second type can be attenuated; simultaneously, the desired dynamic performances can be guaranteed. Simulations for a flight control system are given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the results and compare the proposed results with the previous schemes. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.