A Terminal Sliding Mode Control of Disturbed Nonlinear Second-Order Dynamical Systems

The paper presents a terminal sliding mode controller for a certain class of disturbed nonlinear dynamical systems. The class of such systems is described by nonlinear second-order differential equations with an unknown and bounded disturbance. A sliding surface is defined by the system state and the desired trajectory. The control law is designed to force the trajectory of the system from any initial condition to the sliding surface within a finite time. The trajectory of the system after reaching the sliding surface remains on it. A computer simulation is included as an example to verify the approach and to demonstrate its effectiveness.