Nonlinear Analysis 65 (2006) 16891704

www.elsevier.com/locate/na
Synthesis of switching controllers: A fuzzy supervisor
approach
Najib Essounbouli

, Noureddine Manamanni, Abdelaziz Hamzaoui,

Janan Zaytoon
Centre de Recherche en STIC, Facult e des Sciences, B.P.1039, 51687, Reims cedex 2, France
Abstract
In this paper the synthesis of multiple controllers for a class of time-varying nonlinear systems is
considered. The proposed hybrid control scheme is based on a fuzzy supervisor which manages the
combination of controllers of two types: with sliding mode control (SMC) and H control. A convex
formulation of the two controllers leads to a structure which benets from the advantages of both controllers
to (i) ensure a good tracking performance in both the transient state (SMC) and the steady state (H), (ii)
provide a fast dynamic response to enlarge the stability limits of the system, and (iii) efciently reduce the
chattering phenomena induced by the SMC. The stability analysis uses the Lyapunov technique, inspired
from switching system theory, to prove that the system with the proposed controller remains globally stable
despite the conguration changing. Some simulation results and conclusions end the paper.
c 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Sliding mode control; Hcontrol; Fuzzy supervisor; Riccati equation; Nonlinear systems
1. Introduction
Hybrid dynamical systems include continuous and discrete dynamics and a mechanics
(supervisor) managing the interaction between these dynamics. This paper is concerned with
a particular class of hybrid systems where the hybrid nature of the control scheme developed
consists of a fuzzy supervisor managing the combination between two controllers (SMC and
H). The switching action is gradual and is related to the system evolution between the
consecutive transient and steady state modes.

Corresponding author. Tel.: +33 326 91 83 86; fax: +33 326 91 31 06.
E-mail address: n.essounbouli@iut-troyes.univ-reims.fr (N. Essounbouli).
0362-546X/$ - see front matter c 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.na.2005.12.039
1690 N. Essounbouli et al. / Nonlinear Analysis 65 (2006) 16891704
An abrupt switch is not used in the proposed control scheme in order to attenuate the
controllability and the instability problems related to the induced jump phenomenon. So, in
this work, the supervisor determines the adequate mixing between the two controllers in each
mode. Furthermore, the proof of the global stability of a closed loop system using the proposed
method is related to the ones developed for switching systems theory based on multiple Lyapunov
functions [5].
Combination of different techniques to obtain the best performances is widely used today.
Wong et al. [19] proposed a combination of three methods: SMC, fuzzy logic control (FLC), and
PI control. The resulting controller eliminates the chattering and the steady error introduced by
the FLC. Lin and Chen [12] used Genetic algorithms to optimize the mixing of SMC and FLC,
and hence to reduce chattering in the system. Barrero et al. [1] developed a FLC-based hybrid
controller to manage the switching between a SMC and a fuzzy PI controller. Nevertheless,
the above-mentioned works use a xed combination or restrictive assumptions for the stability
analysis.
The aim of this paper is to propose a fuzzy supervisor for hybrid combination of SMC and
H controllers to overcome their disadvantages, and to ensure the robustness and the stability
of the closed loop system.
According to Utkin [17], SMC is unique in its ability to achieve accurate, robust and
decoupled tracking for a class of nonlinear time-varying systems in the presence of disturbances
and parameter variations. It achieves these performances without precise calculations or
estimations of the system parameters, nonlinearities, and disturbances. SMC relies on the
presence of a high speed switching feedback control, and has its roots in relay and bangbang
control theory. The advent of faster switching circuitry, and the many advances in computer
technology, have made the implementation of SMC a reality and of increasing interest to control
system engineers [13,15,6]. Nevertheless, the major problem related to SMC is the chattering
phenomenon, which is quite undesirable in dynamic systems.
H techniques guarantee the robustness of the disturbed systems. Many combinations of
fuzzy logic intelligence and Htechnique efciency have been proposed in the literature [4,3,7,
11]. In these works, the plant is approximated by two adaptive fuzzy systems; an Hsupervisor
computed froma Riccati-like equation attenuates the effects of both the external disturbances and
the approximation errors. Using the linear matrix inequality (LMI) technique, Tseng et al. [16]
proposed a FLC based on the TakagiSugeno system. The robustness and the tracking problem
are treated using LMI. However, there is a trade-off between the attenuation level and the system
time response on one hand, and the behaviour of the applied control signal on the other hand.
The contribution of the work presented in this paper is combining SMC and H controllers
using a supervisor, which manages the gradual transition from one controller to another. This
method is applied to a class of uncertain nonlinear systems subject to external disturbances, to
overcome the drawbacks of each controller. The control signal is obtained via a weighting sum of
the two signals given by the SMC and the Hcontrollers. This weighting sumis managed thanks
to a fuzzy supervisor, which is adapted to obtain the desired closed loop system performances
by beneting from the robustness of the SMC in the approaching phase and the ability of the
H control to eliminate the chattering and to guarantee the system robustness near the sliding
surface. So, the SMC mainly acts in the transient state providing a fast dynamic response and
enlarging the stability limits of the system, while the Hcontrol acts mainly in the steady state to
reduce chattering and maintain the tracking performances. This method is particularly attractive
for nonlinear systems since it can result in many cases in invariant control systems, i.e. systems
completely insensitive to parametric uncertainties and external disturbances. Furthermore, the
N. Essounbouli et al. / Nonlinear Analysis 65 (2006) 16891704 1691
global stability of the system even if the system switches from one conguration to another
(transient to steady state and vice versa) is guaranteed.
Section 2 presents the system denition, and the two controllers used. In Section 3, the fuzzy
supervisor, and the proposed control law and its stability analysis are described. An example is
given in Section 4 to illustrate the efciency of the proposed method.
2. Problem statement
2.1. System denition
Most of electromechanical SISO systems can be described by the following differential
equations which represent an nth-order nonlinear dynamic Single-Input Single-Output (SISO)
system in the canonical form:
x
(n)
= f (x, x, . . . , x
(n1)
) + g(x, x, . . . , x
(n1)
)u +d
y = x
(1)
where f and g are two continuous uncertain and bounded functions; u R and y R are
respectively the input and output of the system, and d denotes the external disturbances (due
to system load, external noise, etc) which are assumed to be unknown but bounded. It should
be noted that more general classes of nonlinear control problem could be transformed into this
structure [15,4]. Let X = (x, x, . . . , x
(n1)
)
T
R
n
be the system state vector, which is assumed
to be available for measurement. For the system (1) to be controllable, the condition g(X) = 0
must be satised in a given controllability region, U
c
R
n
.
In the case where the system model is unknown and/or no information from the human
expert describing the system dynamic behaviour is available, the model can be approximated
by two adaptive fuzzy systems, which are used to synthesize the H and the sliding mode
controllers. Hence, the corresponding adaptation laws are deduced fromthe stability analysis [8].
Nevertheless, the control design requires a large computation time which makes it difcult to
implement. To overcome this problem, we can benet from the ability of the system to be
described by a collection of local nominal models [9]. Thus, the functions f and g can be written
as sums of a known nominal part and an uncertain but bounded part:
f (x) = f
0
(x) +f (x)
g(x) = g
0
(x) +g(x).
Hence, the system described in (1) becomes
x
(n)
= f
0
(x) + g
0
(x)u +w +d
y = x
(2)
where w = f (x) +g(x)u.
The control objective is to force y to follow a given bounded reference trajectory, y
r
, under
the constraint that the stability and the robustness of the closed loop system are guaranteed.
2.2. Sliding mode control
In order to determine the SMC signal, let us rst dene the sliding surface, given by
s(x, t ) = k
1
e k
2
e k
n1
e
(n2)
e
(n1)
(3)
1692 N. Essounbouli et al. / Nonlinear Analysis 65 (2006) 16891704
where e = y
r
y denotes the tracking error, and the factors k
i
are calculated such that the
Hurwitzian stability criterion is satised.
The process of sliding control can be divided into two phases: the approaching phase where
s(x, t ) = 0, and the sliding phase where s(x, t ) = 0. A sufcient condition for guaranteeing the
transition of the tracking error trajectory from the approaching phase to the sliding one is [15]:
1
2
d
dt
s
2
(x, t ) = s(x, t ) s(x, t ) |s(x, t )|; > 0 (4)
with
s(x, t ) = k
1
e k
2
e k
n1
e
(n1)
e
(n)
. (5)
The following control law [15] can be used to ensure the stability of the closed loop system and
to satisfy the transition condition (4):
u
SMC
= g
1
0
(x)
_
f
0
(x) +
n1

i=1
k
i
e
(i)
+ y
(n)
r
Dsign(s)
_
(6)
where D is a positive constant chosen such that D |w| +|d| +.
Let us consider the following Lyapunov function for the stability and the robustness analysis
of the closed loop system:
V =
1
2
s
2
(x, t ). (7)
Using Eqs. (2), (5) and (6), the time derivative of (7) becomes

V = s(x, t )
_

n1

i=1
k
i
e
i
f
0
(x) g
0
(x)u
SMC
+
n1

i=1
k
i
e
i
Dsign(st) + f
0
(x) + g
0
(x)u
SMC
+w +d
_
.
Then,

V = s(x, t )(w +d) D|s(x, t )| 0.

Hence, the global stability of the closed loop system is guaranteed, as well as the property of
attractivity of the sliding surface. Nevertheless, one needs to attenuate the chattering phenomena
induced by the sign function. The main idea of this work is to use an Hcontrol, which will act
mainly in the steady state to reduce chattering without degrading the tracking performances and
the systems stability.
2.3. Hcontrol
The synthesized H control ensures the robustness of the system subjected to external
perturbations. Consider the following control law [7]:
u

= g
1
0
(x)[f
0
(x) + y
(n)
r
+
T
E u
h
] (8)
where E = [e, e, . . . , e
n1
]
T
is the error vector, and = [
n
,
n1
, . . . ,
1
]
T
is the dynamic
error coefcient vector chosen such that the Hurwitzian stability criterion is satised. u
h
is the
N. Essounbouli et al. / Nonlinear Analysis 65 (2006) 16891704 1693
Hsupervisor which attenuates the effect of external disturbances on the tracking error and the
structural uncertainties [4,7].
Using (8) the tracking error dynamic can be written as

E = AE + B[u
h
w d] (9)
where
A =
_
_
_
_
_
0 1 0 0 . . . 0 0
0 0 1 0 . . . 0 0
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
0 0 0 0 . . . 0 1

1

2
. . . . . . . . . . . .
n
_

_
, B = [0 . . . 0 1]
T
.
Since A is a stable matrix, it can be associated with the following algebraic Riccati equation:
AP
T
+ PA + Q 2PB
_
1
r

1
2
2
_
B
T
P = 0 (10)
where Q is a positive denite matrix given by the designer, r is a weighting factor, and is the
attenuation level. This equation has a unique positive denite solution, P = P
T
, if and only if
2
r

1

2
0.
To determine u
h
and to prove the global stability of the closed loop system subject to this control,
the following Lyapunov function is considered:
V =
1
2
E
T
PE. (11)
Using Eqs. (9) and (10), the time derivative of (11) can be given by

V =
1
2
E
T
QE
1

2
E
T
PBB
T
PE + E
T
PB
_
1
r
B
T
PE +u
h
w d
_
. (12)
On choosing
u
h
=
1
r
E
T
PB. (13)
Eq. (12) implies that

V
1
2
E
T
QE +

2
(w +d)
2
2
.
By integrating the above inequality from t = 0 to the response time T, the following H
criterion is obtained:
_
T
0
E
T
QE.dt E
T
(0)PE(0) +
_
T
0

2
(w +d)
2
.dt . (14)
Hence, the stability and the robustness of the closed loop system are guaranteed.
On the other hand, this last inequality (14) can be rewritten as
_
T
0
E
T
E.dt
1

Q
E
T
(0)PE(0) +
1

Q
_
T
0

2
(w +d)
2
.dt
1694 N. Essounbouli et al. / Nonlinear Analysis 65 (2006) 16891704
where
Q
is the minimal eigenvalue of Q and the right side of this inequality is bounded. Thus,
fromBarbalats lemma, we can conclude that the tracking error converges towards zero in a nite
time [18,7].
Now, the following remarks can be stated concerning the implementation of the control laws
(6) and (8):
Remarks. (1) Real processes often use a saturation condition on the control signal to preserve
the systems actuators or for security reasons. In this case, it is advisable to take into account
the variations of the control signal u
h
in the H criterion. Hence, the Riccati equation and
the corresponding criterion respectively become [4]
A
T
P + PA PB
_
1
r

1

2
_
B
T
P = 0 (15)
_
T
0
[E
T
QE +ru
2
h
].dt E
T
(0)PE(0) +
_
T
0

2
(w +d)
2
.dt . (16)
(2) The control laws (6) and (8) are functions of the nominal model. Thus in the case where only
partial information (around some functioning points) is available, we have to establish the
local models and then, by using a fuzzy system, deduce an averaged model which will be
considered as nominal. For a functioning point j , this can be done as follows:
IF x
1
is a neighbourhood of x
j
1
AND x
2
is a neighbourhood of x
j
2
AND ANDx
n
is a
neighbourhood of x
j
n
THEN x = A
j
f
x +b
j
f
u.
This can be given by
IF x
1
is H
j
1
AND x
2
is H
j
2
AND . . . AND x
n
is H
j
n
THEN x
(n)
=
n

i=1
a
j
f i
x
i
+b
j
f n
u (17)
where A
j
f
= [a
j
f ik
]
1i,kn
, b
j
f
= [b
j
f i
]
1in
, and H
j
i
is a fuzzy set describing the
neighbourhood of x
i
around the j th functioning point.
It is easy to see that Eq. (17) can be considered as a fuzzy rule of a TakagiSugeno fuzzy
system. By using the algebraic product as an inference engine and the centre average for
defuzzication, the following system is obtained:
x
(n)
=
r
f

j =1
w
j
f
_
n

i=1
a
j
f i
x
i
+b
j
f n
u
_
r
f

j =1
w
j
f
(18)
where w
j
f
=

n
i=1

H
j
i
(x
i
), r
f
is the number of functioning points and
H
j
i
(x
i
) is the degree
of membership of x
i
in the fuzzy set H
j
i
.
If
f
f 0
(x) =
_
_
_
_
_
r
f

j =1
w
j
f
[
n

i=1
a
j
f i
x
i
]
r
f

j =1
w
j
f
_

_
N. Essounbouli et al. / Nonlinear Analysis 65 (2006) 16891704 1695
Fig. 1. The control scheme of the proposed method.
and
g
f 0
(x) =
_
_
_
_
_
r
f

j =1
w
j
f
b
j
f n
r
f

j =1
w
j
f
_

_
,
then Eq. (18) becomes
x
(n)
= f
f 0
(x) + g
f 0
(x)u.
Note that this model is equivalent to (2) and can be considered as a nominal model which
can be used for the synthesis and the design of the control laws (6) and (8).
3. Fuzzy supervisor
SMC is an efcient means for controlling nonlinear systems. It is robust because the high
gain feedback control input cancels nonlinearities and external disturbances. It provides a fast
dynamic response, a stable control system, and a simple implementation. Conversely, this control
strategy leads to some drawbacks associated with the large torque chattering that appears in the
steady state, which may excite the unmodelled dynamics and damage the plant.
The H techniques can be an alternative for guaranteeing the robustness and the global
stability of a nonlinear disturbed system. However, the choice of the attenuation level affects
directly the corresponding Riccati-like equation, and the possibility of obtaining a unique
solution. Therefore, the dynamic performances depend on this choice.
In order to take advantage of both controllers, SMC during the transient time, and Hcontrol
during the steady state, their control actions are combined by means of a weighting factor,
[01], representing the output of a fuzzy logic supervisor that takes the tracking error e and
its time derivatives e, e, . . . , e
n1
as inputs. The global control scheme of the proposed approach
is illustrated in Fig. 1.
The fuzzy system is constructed from a collection of fuzzy rules whose j th component can be
given in the form
IF e is H
j
1
And And e
n1
is H
j
n
THEN =
j
where H
j
i
is a fuzzy set, and
j
is a singleton.
1696 N. Essounbouli et al. / Nonlinear Analysis 65 (2006) 16891704
Fig. 2. The variation of in the state space.
The fuzzy implication uses the product operation rule. The connective AND is implemented
by means of the minimum operation, whereas fuzzy rules are combined by algebraic addition.
Defuzzication is performed using the centroid method, which generates the gravity centre of the
membership function of the output set. Since the membership functions that dene the linguistic
terms of the output variable are singletons, the output of the fuzzy system is given by
=
m

i=1

i
n

j =1

j
i
m

i=1
n

j =1

j
i
where
j
i
is the degree of membership of H
j
i
, and m is the number of fuzzy rules used.
The objective of this fuzzy supervisor is to determine the weighting factor, , which gives the
participation rate of each control signal. Indeed, when the absolute values of the tracking error e
and its time derivatives e, e, . . . , e
n1
are small (near to zero), the plant is governed by the H
controller given by (8), ( = 1). Conversely, if the error and its derivatives are large, the plant
is governed by the SMC given by (6) and = 0. The variation of for the case where n = 2 is
depicted in Fig. 2.
The control action, u, is determined by
u = (1 )u
SMC
+u

. (19)
Remark. In the case of a large rule base, some techniques can be employed to signicantly
reduce the number of rules activated at each sampled time by using the systemposition in the state
space [2,10,14]. Indeed, Boukezzoula et al. [2] have demonstrated that using a strict triangular
partitioning allows guaranteeing that, at each sampling time, each input variable is described with
two linguistic terms at the most. Thus, the output generated by the fuzzy system with n inputs is
then reduced to that produced by the subsystem composed of the 2
n
red rules.
N. Essounbouli et al. / Nonlinear Analysis 65 (2006) 16891704 1697
3.1. Stability analysis
The theorem of Wong et al. [20] will be used to prove the global stability of the system
governed by the control law (19). Using SMC and H control, this theorem can be rewritten as
follows:
Theorem 1. Consider a combined fuzzy logic control system as described in this work. If
(1) there exist a positive denite, continuously differentiable, and radially unbounded scalar
function V,
(2) every fuzzy subsystem gives a negative denite

V in the active region of the corresponding
fuzzy rule,
(3) the weighted sum defuzzication method is used, such that for any output u we have
min(u
SMC
, u

) u max(u
SMC
, u

),
(4) then the resulting control u, given by (19), guarantees the global stability of the closed loop
system.
Satisfying the two rst conditions guarantees the existence of a Lyapunov function in the
active region which is a sufcient condition for ensuring the asymptotic stability of the system
during the transition from the sliding mode control to the Hone.
So, let us consider the following Lyapunov function:
V =
1
2
e
T
Pe
where P is a solution of the Riccati equation.
Section 2.3 has shown that the synthesized Hcontrol ensures the decrease of the Lyapunov
function V.
From Eq. (7) in the sliding mode case, we have
1
2
n1

i=1

2
i
[e
(i1)
]
2
+
1
2
[e
n1
]
2

1
2
s
T
s.
Since P is a positive denite matrix, we have
V =
1
2
e
T
Pe
1
2

max
e
T
e
where
max
is the maximal eigenvalue of P.
Thus to satisfy the second condition of the theorem, it is enough to choose
i
such that

max
min[(
2
i
)
1in1
, 1]. (20)
This condition guarantees that in the neighbourhood of the steady state (H control), the value
of the Lyapunov function (7) is greater than that of (11) which corresponds to the control acting
in the transient state.
To guarantee min(u
SMC
, u
inf
) u max(u
SMC
, u
inf
) (third condition), the balancing term
takes its values in the interval [0 1].
Consequently, the three conditions of the above theorem are satised, and both the global
stability of the system and the error convergence towards zero are guaranteed.
1698 N. Essounbouli et al. / Nonlinear Analysis 65 (2006) 16891704
Fig. 3. The inverted pendulum system.
Remark. We can note that the proof of stability in our case is similar to that used for switching
system theory [5]. Indeed the energy of the system corresponding to the H controller is less
than that for SMC, guaranteeing the stability of the closed loop system during the transition from
SMC to H.
In the event of large external disturbance, leading the system back to a transient mode, the
proposed controller adjusts the weighting factor such that the system remains stable in this new
conguration until returning to the steady state, which implies a new variation of the control
signal. This will be illustrated in the simulation section.
3.2. Design procedure
In order to minimize the on-line computing time of the proposed method and to simplify
its real time implementation, the design procedure implies an off-line processing step, and an
on-line step during control execution. In the off-line step, the gains k
i
are dened in order to
satisfy the Hurwitz criterion. Then by xing the sliding term , and using the upper bound of the
uncertainties ( f (x)) and (g(x)) and the maximal value of the admissible control, the positive
constant D is determined. For ease of computation of the H control and in order to satisfy the
stability condition (20), we advise simplifying the Riccati equation by choosing r =
2
, which
leads to a simple Lyapunov function. Then, the
i
gains are xed and the matrix Q chosen to
satisfy condition (20). After computing the solution P, the desired attenuation level is imposed.
The supervisor design is essentially based on the available information of the process under
study. Indeed, when a sufcient amount of information is available, it becomes possible to reduce
the number of inputs and the fuzzy rules.
In order to construct the fuzzy supervisor, we dene rstly the fuzzy sets for each input and
output (the error and its derivatives); then the rule base is elaborated.
For the on-line step, the error vector is computed and then injected in the supervisor to
determine the value of to deduce the signal (6) and (8) and, consequently, to apply the global
control signal.
4. Simulation
A simulation of the inverted pendulumdepicted in Fig. 3 will be used to illustrate the proposed
approach.
Let x
1
= and x
2
=

. The dynamic equation of the inverted pendulum is given by
Wang [18]:
x
1
= x
2
N. Essounbouli et al. / Nonlinear Analysis 65 (2006) 16891704 1699
Fig. 4. The structure of the proposed fuzzy supervisor.
x
2
=
g sin x
1

ml x
2
2
cos(x
1
) sin(x
1
)
m
c
+m
+
cos(x
1
)
m
c
+m
u
l(
4
3

m cos
2
(x
1
)
m
c
+m
)
y = x
1
where g is the acceleration due to gravity, m
c
is the mass of the cart, m is the mass of the pole,
l is the half-length of the pole, the force u represents the control signal, and d is the external
disturbance. Let us choose m
c
= 1 kg, m = 0.1 kg and l = 0.5 m in the following simulations.
The reference signal is assumed here to be y
r
(t ) = (/30) sin(t ), and the system is subject to
external disturbances: d(t ) = 0.1. sin(t ). For the SMC, let k
1
= 25, and D = 7.
To compute the H control law, we x
T
= [2 1]
T
, and Q = diag(1, 1). Furthermore, for
ease of computation, the equality r = 2
2
is chosen. To obtain a good attenuation level, is
considered as = 0.75.
The fuzzy supervisor is constructed by using three fuzzy sets zero, medium, and large for
the tracking error and its time derivative. The corresponding membership functions are triangular,
as shown in Fig. 4. For the output, ve singletons are selected; very large (VL), large (L),
medium (M), small (S), and zero (Z), corresponding to 1, 0.75, 0.5, 0.25, and 0, respectively.
The fuzzy rule base is depicted in Fig. 4. Rules are dened by a table; for example, a rule in the
table can be stated as follows: If the absolute value of the error is medium AND the absolute
value of the error derivative is large, THEN is zero. Note that we started with ve fuzzy sets
for each input which leads to 25 fuzzy rules. By using the fact that the rule base obtained is in
symmetric form in the state space, we can reduce it to nine rules by using the absolute value of
the inputs. Hence the computing time is considerably reduced.
Simulation results related to the application of the three control laws are given in Figs. 59.
These gures show that SMC and the combined controller provide a fast dynamic response com-
pared to H, and that H and the combined controller provide a smooth variation of the con-
trol signal without chattering. Hence, the proposed control set-up eliminates the disadvantages
of both H and SMC, and benets from their advantages in terms of tracking performance and
the robustness to external perturbations, which is ensured by H control in the steady state.
Thus, we obtain an intermediate dynamics whose advantage is to have a compromise between
the settling time and the actuator solicitations. Figs. 57, representing respectively the angular
position, the tracking error, and the phase plane of the inverted pendulum for each control law,
show that the proposed controller ensures a good convergence towards the desired trajectory.
1700 N. Essounbouli et al. / Nonlinear Analysis 65 (2006) 16891704
Fig. 5. The angular position of the inverted pendulum obtained using the three control laws.
Fig. 6. The tracking error obtained using the three control laws.
Figs. 8 and 9 represent the applied efforts (control). The zoom depicted in Fig. 9, which
highlights the short time interval representing the transient state of the system, shows that the
combination of SMC and H control entails a lower solicitation of the actuators.
To further illustrate the robustness of the closed loop systemand the satisfaction of the stability
theorem, we apply a sinusoidal reference signal with time-varying frequency and amplitude. The
chosen desired trajectory forces the system, at each signal variation, to switch from the steady
state to a new transient mode. This hybrid conguration leads the fuzzy supervisor to manage
the combination of the two controllers when the next mode is entered. As given in Fig. 10, the
system output exhibits good tracking performance despite consecutive variations of the reference
signal. Fig. 11 presents the corresponding energy V
1
obtained using sliding mode control and V
2
obtained using H, and the evolution of the factor which manages the combination such that
N. Essounbouli et al. / Nonlinear Analysis 65 (2006) 16891704 1701
Fig. 7. The phase plane of the inverted pendulum obtained using the three control laws.
Fig. 8. The applied efforts obtained using the proposed method.
the applied control signal forces the system to remain stable and to attain the desired trajectory.
The variations and the abrupt changes of the frequency and the amplitude of the reference signal,
depicted in Fig. 11, correspond to the system evolution from the transition to the steady state
mode. In this case the fuzzy supervisor favours Hto reach the steady state with a fast dynamic.
In this way the term approaches its upper bound and the energy involved with the sliding mode
controller exceeds that for the H one. In the approaching phase near the steady state, the
term tends toward zero to favour the H controller. Furthermore, Fig. 11 shows that the energy
induced by the sliding mode controller is always exceeding the one induced by H. Hence the
conditions of Theorem 1 are satised and the system global stability is guaranteed despite the
conguration changing.
1702 N. Essounbouli et al. / Nonlinear Analysis 65 (2006) 16891704
Fig. 9. The applied efforts obtained using the three control laws (zoom).
Fig. 10. Output tracking.
5. Conclusion
In this work, we have developed a hybrid robust controller for a class of nonlinear and
disturbed systems. The main idea is the use of a fuzzy supervisor to manage efciently the
action of two controllers based on SMC and H, such that the system remains stable and
robust despite the plant switching from one mode to a new one. Furthermore, this structure
allows us to take advantage of both controllers and to efciently eliminate their drawbacks.
Simulation results showed the efciency and the design simplicity of the proposed approach.
Indeed, the SMC provides good performances in the transient state (a fast dynamic response,
enlarged stability limits of the system), while the H control acts mainly in the steady state to
reduce chattering and the effect of the external disturbances. Moreover, for a sinusoidal reference
signal with time-varying frequency and amplitude, the tracking performances are not degraded
N. Essounbouli et al. / Nonlinear Analysis 65 (2006) 16891704 1703
Fig. 11. Evolution of the system energy and the coefcient .
and the system stability is guaranteed. This work can be generalized to multiple controllers, more
than two, managed by the same fuzzy supervisor. Indeed, the structure of the fuzzy supervisor
allows partitioning the state into different substates. An adequate controller can be dened for
each substate to ensure the desired performances. The rule base of the fuzzy supervisor will
be reconstructed so that the premise part denes the subspace and the conclusion part the
corresponding control law. Thus the applied control signal will be a weighted sum of all the
controllers used. Our future work concerns the extension of the proposed approach to uncertain
and multi-input multi-output systems and the use of state observers to overcome the availability
of the state variables for measurement.
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