ELEC8406 Sliding Mode Control of Power Electronics

Lecture 3:

Introduction to Sliding Mode Control

Reference: S.C. Tan, Chapter 1. Sliding Mode Control of Switching Power Converters
 History (1)
• SM control can be traced back to the 1930s

• Earliest forms of SM control for ship-course control

2
 History (2)
• Development of the SM theory/applications first initiated
by Russian engineers in the 1950s

• Theoretical framework facilitating the widespread of SM

control was reported in Russian literature

• SM was subsequently disseminated outside Russia in

English written manuscripts by Itkis (1976) and Utkin
(1977)

• Since then, SM control has aroused a lot of interests of

control theoreticians and practicing engineers
3
 Characteristics
• a kind of nonlinear control developed primarily
for variable structure systems

• consists of a time-varying state-feedback

discontinuous control law

• switches at a high frequency from one

continuous structure to another

• force the dynamics of the system to follow

exactly what is desired and pre-determined 4
 Advantages
• main advantage - guaranteed stability and robustness
against parameter uncertainties

•high degree of flexibility in its design choices

• relatively easy to implement as compared to other

nonlinear control methods

• highly suitable for applications in nonlinear systems

• wide utilization in industrial applications, e.g.,

electrical drivers, automotive control, etc. 5
 General Theory (1)
• Consider an equilibrium point O on an imaginary
plane in a system with 3-D space. O represents a stable
attractor where trajectory touching it will settle upon.

6
 General Theory (2)
• Consider that trajectory of a system is arbitrarily
located far away from the plane.

• Without any control action, the trajectory will

move according to the natural characteristics of
the system.

• When a control action is given, the trajectory

can be altered in a “preferred way.”

• The direction in which the trajectory moves is

dependent on the type of control action given. 7
 General Theory (3)
•A series of different control actions may be
given to the system such that regardless of its
initial condition, the controlled trajectory will
first move toward the plane, and upon
reaching the plane, will slide along the plane
toward and eventually settle upon O.

•A control such as this is known as SM control.

8
 General Theory (4)
The plane which guides the trajectory is called
the sliding plane or sliding surface, or more
generally, the sliding manifold.

The control actions required for performing the

SM control will involve very fast switching
between different control functions.

The sectors of the space in which the trajectory

can be made to perform SM control is called
the sliding regimes. 9
 Definition
For any given system, if a sliding regime exists and the
sliding manifold ζ = 0 possesses a stable equilibrium
point O, when operated in sliding mode, the feedback
tracking trajectory S, regardless of its location, will be
driven toward the sliding manifold, and upon hitting
the manifold, it will induce the control of the system to
switch alternately between two or more discrete
control functions U1, U2, . . ., etc., at an infinite
frequency, such that the system’s trajectory will be
trapped precisely on the sliding manifold such that S = ζ
= 0, and eventually the trajectory will be directed
toward the desired equilibrium point O.
10
 Operating Mechanism (1)

•Entire SM operation can be divided into two phases.

•First phase is reaching phase, achieved through the

compliance of the so-called hitting condition

•Ensures that controlled trajectory is directed toward

sliding manifold. 11
 Operating Mechanism (2)

• When trajectory touches sliding manifold, system enters

sliding phase and is in SM operation
• Trajectory is trapped on the sliding manifold and is
directed toward O and finally settling at O
• Possible by satisfying existence condition and stability
condition. 12
Properties of Sliding Motion

• An ideal control

• Practical Limitations and Chattering

• Constant Dynamics

• Quasi-Sliding Mode Control

13
 An Ideal Control
• Sliding manifold as a reference path for trajectory flow.

• Inherently adopting an infinite control gain which

enables it to trap trajectory to slide along the manifold.

• No external disturbance or system’s uncertainty can

affect the ideal control performance of having a precise
tracking, zero-regulation error (infinite DC gain), and very
fast dynamic response.

• In a certain sense, the SM control is an ideal (optimal)

type of control for variable structure systems.
14
 Practical Limitations and Chattering (1)
• Everything has been based on ideal assumption of infinite
switching frequency and perfect components of the control

• In practice, there are imperfections of switching devices like

time delay, response time constant, presence of dead zone,
hysteresis effect, saturation of device switching frequency, etc.

• Actual behavior of the sliding motion deviates slightly from

that expected for the ideal condition.

• In addition, a kind of high frequency oscillation may occur in

the control process which is reflected in the actual behavior of
the trajectory.

• This phenomenon is known as chattering. 15

 Practical Limitations and Chattering (2)

• Non-ideality of switching does not affect reaching phase

and is the same for both ideal and non-ideal conditions

• For the sliding phase under the non-ideal condition,

trajectory S does not move exactly on the sliding
manifold, but instead oscillates within its vicinity at a high
frequency while concurrently converging toward O. 16
 Practical Limitations and Chattering (3)

• Ideal condition: S stops precisely at O upon arrival

• Non-ideal condition: S will be trapped in a periodically-
oscillating state at a point near O

• Ideal condition: no error during steady state

• Non-ideal condition: steady-state error.
17
 Constant Dynamics
• In sliding phase, the movement of the trajectory is
confined along the sliding manifold, which means that
the motion equation of the trajectory is S = ζ = 0.

• The dynamics of a system under SM operation is

constant and is independent of the system parameters
or disturbance.

• Such a property applies only to the sliding phase but

not the reaching phase which has a different set of
dynamic characteristics for a given operating condition.

18
 Quasi Sliding Mode Control
• Extreme high-speed switching of SM control may result
in excessive losses and wear out, and is a source of noise.

• Switching frequency of the control implementation

must be confined within a practical range.

• Control is now a quasi-sliding mode (QSM) or pseudo-

sliding mode (PSM) control, which is an approximation of
the ideal SM control.

• Consequence is degradation of system’s robustness and

deterioration of the regulation properties.
19
Mathematical Formulation

20
 Hitting Condition (1)

Objective: ensure that control decision will direct the

trajectory to approach and reach, within a vicinity δ, the
sliding manifold .

Initial state of trajectory Si = S(t = 0) is located at a

distance away from the sliding manifold ζ = 0
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 Hitting Condition (2)
The necessary and sufficient condition for the system
to satisfy the hitting condition is

Compliance of inequality signifies that S is continuously

being attracted toward the sliding manifold ζ = 0 for t >
0, and that the choice of ui = u(t > 0) is supporting this
attraction.

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 Hitting Condition (3)
Hence, one fundamental aspect of designing the SM
control is to first determine, for a desired set of control
parameters (sliding coefficients), the suitable discontinuous
control action for the system.

In other words, design of U+ and U− would have to ensure

that hitting condition be always satisfied for the system.

The inequality is a partial result of the Lyapunov second

theorem on stability, of which the Lyapunov function
candidate is

23
 Existence Condition
Ensures that once the trajectory is at locations within
the vicinity of the sliding manifold such that 0 < |S| < δ,
it is still always directed toward the sliding manifold.

Existence condition of the SM operation can be

determined by inspecting

This can be expressed as

24
 Stability Condition (1)

• Stability condition ensures trajectory moves toward a

stable equilibrium point.

• Left figure shows the trajectory stabilizing at O when

stability condition is fulfilled.

• Right figure shows the same trajectory moving pass O

when stability condition is not fulfilled. 25
 Stability Condition (2)
System with Linear Sliding Manifold

System with trajectory made up of state variables and their time

derivatives/integrals (so-called in the phase canonical form) has a
linear sliding manifold as such

Applying Laplace transform, we have

By applying Routh-Hurwitz stability criterion, condition for stability

can be obtained. For example, for a second-order polynomial, the
stability condition would be α1 > 0 and α2 > α3 > 0. 26
 Stability Condition (3)
System with Non-Linear Sliding Manifold (pp 27-32)

For SM-controlled system with nonlinear sliding

manifold, a different approach based on the
equivalent control method is adopted to derive
the stability condition. This approach involves first
deriving the ideal sliding dynamics of the system,
and then performing a stability analysis on its
equilibrium point.

27
 Stability Condition (4)
Ideal Sliding Dynamics

Discontinuous control action u(t) (in page 20) is replaced

by a continuous control action ueq(t) converts a switching
SM system into an average continuous SM system

The control action ueq(t), which is the equivalent control

derived from the so-called equivalent control method (to
be discussed in the following section), is a solution of
dS/dt = 0.
28
 Stability Condition (5)
ueq(t) is a function f(.) of the dynamics of the state
variables and the sliding coefficients, and from page 20, it
can be given as

Substituting this equation into previous equation gives

which represents the ideal sliding dynamics of the system

during SM operation and is independent of the control
signal. 29
 Stability Condition (6)
Equilibrium Point

Assume there exists a stable equilibrium point on

the sliding manifold on which the ideal sliding
dynamics eventually settled. Then, the state
equations during ideal sliding dynamics (page 29)
can be solved to give the steady-state operating
point (x1(ss), x2(ss), ..., xm(ss)) during SM operation
by putting x˙(t) = 0.

30
 Stability Condition (7)
Linearization of Ideal Sliding Dynamics

The linearization of the ideal sliding dynamics around the

equilibrium point (x1(ss), x2(ss), ..., xm(ss)) gives

where represents the linearized small-signal ideal

sliding dynamics around the steady-state operating point,
and are the small-signal ac
equivalent components of and
, respectively.
31
 Stability Condition (8)
Arranging the equation in matrix form

where A is the Jacobian square matrix of . The

characteristic equation of the linearized sliding dynamics is

where det(.) is the determinant function, I is the identity

matrix, and λ is the eigenvalue of the system. Application of
Routh-Hurwitz stability criterion to the characteristic
equation gives a set of conditions that will ensure stability
of the ideal sliding dynamics and confirm the presence of a
stable equilibrium point on the sliding manifold. 32
 Equivalent Control (1)
• Ideal SM control operates the system at an infinite
switching frequency

• Trajectory moves precisely on the sliding manifold

• Practical limitations of devices induce a low-

amplitude high-frequency oscillation (chattering)

• Treated at two components in the trajectory, namely

a “fast-moving” (high-frequency) component and a
“slow-moving” (low-frequency) component.
33
 Equivalent Control (2)

• High-frequency component oscillates between

the +ve and −ve directions

• Low-frequency component moves along the

sliding plane 34
 Equivalent Control (3)
• Possible to relate low-frequency component of the
trajectory to respectively a low-frequency continuous
switching action ulow(t)

• High-frequency component to a high-frequency

discontinuous switching action

• Overall control signal is

35
 Equivalent Control (4)
• uhigh(t) produces high-frequency trajectory component
ulow(t) produces low-frequency trajectory component.

• By ignoring high-frequency component, the motion of

trajectory is then solely determined by low-frequency
component.

• ulow(t) produces a trajectory that is nearly equivalent to

an ideal SM-controlled trajectory.

• This is the so-called equivalent control of the system,

i.e., ueq(t), and is actually the low-frequency continuous
switching action ulow(t). 36
Equivalent Control (5)

37
 Types of Implementation (1)
Relay and Signum Functions

Conventional method of implementing SM control

is realized using a switch relay, which is realized
through analog or digital computation of
instantaneous trajectory S(t). 38
 Types of Implementation (2)
In applications involving only a positive-or-negative
decision, signum function can be used for the relay, i.e.,

where the signum function sgn(.) is defined as

For applications involving only digital logic, function is

replaced by

39
 Types of Implementation (3)
• Implementation is straightforward and simple

• However, switched at a very high frequency

giving an unwanted chattering effect in the system

• Unsuitable for some applications which see this

as an undesired high-frequency noise

• Possible to restrict the range of the operating

frequency by using a hysteresis function
40
 Types of Implementation (4)
Hysteresis Function

Implementation of SM control through hysteresis

function is easily accomplished using

where Δ is an arbitrarily small value.

Introduction of a hysteresis band with the boundary

conditions S = Δ and S = −Δ provides a form of control to
the switching frequency of the system. 41
 Types of Implementation (5)

As a result, the trajectory S of the system will operate

precisely in the vicinity of ± Δ of the sliding manifold with
a controlled oscillation as illustrated in the figure. The
chattering effect now becomes controllable and is a
function of Δ. 42
 Types of Implementation (6)
Equivalent Control Function

• The equivalent control function ueq(t) of a system is the

ideal averaged control function required during the SM
phase and is bounded by

• Based on the invariance conditions ,

equivalent control is derived by simply solving

• Implementation of the equivalent control function

results in a system that operates with ideal SM control

without high-frequency chattering 43
 Types of Implementation (7)
• Derivation of equivalent control using only part of the
invariance conditions ˙ would be
sufficient for implementing the SM control.

• Reason is when equivalent function evolves on S, there

is interdependency among the state variables of the ideal
sliding system (with ) and therefore,
one of the equations is redundant.

• When a system enters into the SM phase, i.e., S = 0, the

implementation of a control law that ensures will
automatically imply S = 0, and vice versa.
44
Types of Implementation (8)

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