Robust output tracking for uncertain/nonlinear systems subject to almost constant disturbances

In this paper, we consider uncertain/nonlinear systems subject to unknown constant disturbance inputs. We wish to design state feedback controllers which ensure that the system output asymptotically tracks a specified constant reference signal and all states are bounded. The controllers we consider are PI in the sense that they consist of a piece which depends linearly on the state and another piece which depends on the integral of the output tracking error. Our main result reduces the original problem to a stabilization problem for an associated augmented system which we call the derivative augmented system. We obtain controller design procedures for specific classes of uncertain/nonlinear systems. Then we extend these results to the situation in which the reference signal and the disturbance are not necessarily constant but asymptotically approach a constant. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.