Disturbance observer based controller design for inertially stabilized platform

Inertially stabilized platform (ISP) is indispensable for various imaging systems to segregate the base angular movement and achieve high LOS (Line-Of-Sight) stability. The disturbance rejection ratio and command following performance are of primary concern in designing ISP control systems. In this paper, the redundant gimbals ISP system is considered and it is shown to experience complex disturbance and parameter variation during operation. To meet advanced LOS stabilization requirement, a disturbance observer based (DOB) dual-loop controller design for ISP is proposed of which the DOB is the internal-loop. Using a nominal plant model and a low-pass filter, the disturbance signal is estimated and used as a cancellation input added to the current command of torque motor. If the DOB works well, the disturbance torque and mismatch between nominal plant and actual plant will be compensated and the internal-loop will behave as nominal model parameters. On the other hand, the external-loop will be designed for nominal model parameters to meet stabilization requirements. This paper will mainly focus on the DOB design method. Since the low-pass filter of DOB determines the sensitivity and complementary sensitivity function as will be shown in this paper, designing the filter is the most important consideration. In this paper, an optimal low-pass filter design method is proposed. The method is intuitive, simple to implement and allows on-line tuning. Simulation results show the performance enhancement of our control structure in the presence of disturbance and measurement noise.