Robust nonlinear control of a three-tank system using finite-time disturbance observers

A finite-time disturbance observer-based robust control method is proposed for output tracking of the Inteco threetank system in the presence of mismatched uncertainties. The controller is designed in a backstepping manner. At each step of the virtual controller design, a robust feedback controller with some effective nonlinear damping terms is designed so that the system states remain in the feasible domain. The nonlinear uncertainty is compensated by a finite-time disturbance observer. And to avoid the shortcoming of "explosion of terms", the dynamic surface control technique which employs a low-pass filter is adopted at each step of the virtual controller design. Attention is paid to reducing the measurement noise effects and to initialization technique of the system states and reference output trajectory. Theoretical analysis is performed to clarify the control performance. And the theoretical results are verified based on the experimental studies on the real Inteco three-tank system.