Automatica38(2002)2159–2167/locate/automaticaBrief PaperNon-singular terminal sliding mode control of rigid manipulatorsYong Feng a,Xinghuo Yu b;∗,Zhihong Man ca Department of Electrical Engineering,Harbin Institute of Technology,Harbin150006,People’s Republic of Chinab School of Electrical and Computer Engineering,Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University,GPO Box2476V Melbourne,Vic.3001,Australiac School of Computer Engineering,Nanyang Technological University,SingaporeReceived26June2001;received in revised form16June2002;accepted9July2002AbstractThis paper presents a global non-singular terminal sliding mode controller for rigid manipulators.A new terminal sliding mode manifold isÿrst proposed for the second-order system to enable the elimination of the singularity problem associated with conventional terminal sliding mode control.The time taken to reach the equilibrium point from any initial state is guaranteed to beÿnite time.The proposed terminal sliding mode controller is then applied to the control of n-link rigid manipulators.Simulation results are presented to validate the analysis.?2002Elsevier Science Ltd.All rights reserved.Keywords:Terminal sliding mode control;Singularity;Robotic manipulator;Robust control;Lyapunov stability1.IntroductionVariable structure systems(VSS)are well known for their robustness to system parameter variations and external disturbances(Slotine&Li,1991;Utkin,1992; Yurl&James,1988).VSS have been widely used in many applications,such as robots,aircrafts,DC and AC motors, power systems,process control and so on.An aspect of VSS that is of particular interest is the sliding mode control,which is designed to drive and constrain the system states to lie within a neighborhood of the pre-scribed switching manifolds that exhibit desired dynam-ics.When in the sliding mode,the closed-loopresp onse becomes totally insensitive to both internal parameter un-certainties and external disturbances.A characteristic of conventional VSS is that the convergence of the system states to the equilibrium point is usually asymptotical due to the asymptotical convergence of the linear switching manifolds that are commonly chosen.Recently,a terminal sliding mode(TSM)controller was developed(Man&Yu,1997;Yu&Man,1996;Wu,Yu,& This paper was not presented at any IFAC meeting.This paper was recommended for publication in revised form by Associate Editor Jurek Z.Sasiadek under the direction of Editor Mituhiko Araki.∗Corresponding author.E-mail addresses:yfeng@(Y.Feng),x.yu@.au(X.Yu).Man,1998).TSM has been used in the control of rigid ma-nipulators(Man et al.,1994;Tang,1998).The TSM con-cept is related to theÿnite time control(Haimo,1986; Bhat&Bernstein,1997).Compared with linear hyperplane-based sliding modes,TSM o ers some superior properties such as fast,ÿnite time convergence.This controller is par-ticularly useful for high precision control as it speeds up the rate of convergence near an equilibrium point.However,the existing TSM controller design methods still have a singu-larity problem.An initial discussion to avoid the singularity in TSM control systems was presented(Wu et al.,1998). In this paper,a global non-singular terminal sliding mode (NTSM)controller is presented for a class of nonlinear dy-namical systems with parameter uncertainties and external disturbances.A new NTSM manifold is proposed to over-come the singularity problem.The time taken to reach the manifold from any initial state and the time taken to reach the equilibrium point in the sliding mode can be guaran-teed to beÿnite time.The proposed NTSM controller is then applied to the control of n-degree-of-freedom rigid ma-nipulators.Simulation results are presented to validate the analysis.2.Conventional terminal sliding mode controlThe basic principle of TSM control can be brie y sum-marized as follows:consider a second-order uncertain0005-1098/02/$-see front matter?2002Elsevier Science Ltd.All rights reserved. PII:S0005-1098(02)00147-42160Y.Feng et al./Automatica 38(2002)2159–2167nonlinear dynamical system ˙x 1=x 2;˙x 2=f (x )+g (x )+b (x )u;(1)where x =[x 1;x 2]T is the system state vector,f (x )and b (x )=0are smooth nonlinear functions of x ,and g (x )represents the uncertainties and disturbances satisfying g (x ) 6l g where l g ¿0,and u is the scalar control in-put.The conventional TSM is described by the following ÿrst-order terminal sliding variables =x 2+ÿx q=p1;(2)where ÿ0is a design constant,and p and q are positive odd integers,which satisfy the following condition:p ¿q:(3)The su cient condition for the existence of TSM is 12d d ts 2¡−Á|s |;(4)where Á¿0is a constant.For system (1),a commonly used control design isu =−b −1(x ) f (x )+ÿq px q=p −11x 2+(l g +Á)sgn(s );(5)which ensures that TSM occurs.It is clear that if s (0)=0,the system states will reach the sliding mode s =0within the ÿnite time t r ,which satisÿes t r 6|s (0)|Á:(6)When the sliding mode s =0is reached,the system dy-namics is determined by the following nonlinear di erential equation:x 2+ÿx q=p 1=˙x 1+ÿx q=p1=0;(7)where x 1=0is the terminal attractor of the system (7).The ÿnite time t s that is taken to travel from x 1(t r )=0to x 1(t s +t r )=0is given byt s =−ÿ−1x 1(t r )d x 1x q=p 1=p ÿ(p −q )|x 1(t r )|1−q=p :(8)This means that,in the TSM manifold (7),both the system states x 1and x 2converge to zero in ÿnite time.It can be seen in the TSM control (5)that the secondterm containing x q=p −11x 2may cause a singularity to occur if x 2=0when x 1=0.This situation does not occur inthe ideal sliding mode because when s =0;x 2=−ÿx q=p1hence as long as q ¡p ¡2q ,i.e.1¡p=q ¡2,the term x q=p −11x 2is equivalent to x (2q −p )=p 1which is non-singular.The singularity problem may occur in the reaching phase when there is insu cient control to ensure that x 2=0while x 1=0.The TSM controller (5)cannot guarantee a bounded controlsignal for the case of x 2=0when x 1=0before the system states reach the TSM s =0.Furthermore,the singularity may also occur even after the sliding mode s =0is reached since,due to computation errors and uncertain factors,the system states cannot be guaranteed to always remain in the sliding mode especially near the equilibrium point (x 1=0;x 2=0),and the case of x 2=0while x 1=0may occur from time to time.This underlines the importance of addressing the singularity problem in conventional TSM systems.3.Non-singular terminal sliding mode controlIn order to overcome the singularity problem in the con-ventional TSM systems,several methods have been pro-posed.For example,one approach is to switch the sliding mode between TSM and linear hyperplane based sliding mode (Man &Yu,1997).Another approach is to transfer the trajectory to a pre-speciÿed open region where TSM control is not singular (Wu et al.,1998).These methods are adopting indirect approaches to avoid the singularity.In this paper,a simple NTSM is proposed,which is able to avoid this problem completely.The proposed NTSM model is de-scribed as follows:s =x 1+1ÿx p=q 2;(9)where ÿ;p and q have been deÿned in (2).One can easilysee that when s =0,the NTSM (9)is equivalent to (2)so that the time taken to reach the equilibrium point x 1=0when in the sliding mode is the same as in (8).Note that in using (9)the derivative of s along the system dynamics does not result in terms with negative (fractional)powers.This can be seen in the following theorem about the NTSM control.Theorem 1.For system (1)with the NTSM (9),if the control is designed asu =−b −1(x ) f (x )+ÿq px 2−p=q2+(l g +Á)sgn(s );(10)where 1¡p=q ¡2;Á¿0,then the NTSM manifold (9)will be reached in ÿnite time.Furthermore ,the states x 1and x 2will converge to zero in ÿnite time .Proof.For the NTSM (9),its derivative along the system dynamics (1)is ˙s =˙x 1+1ÿp q x p=q −12˙x 2=x 2+1ÿp q x p=q −12˙x 2=x 2+1ÿp q x p=q −12(f (x )+g (x )+b (x )u )Y.Feng et al./Automatica38(2002)2159–21672161=x2+1ÿpqx p=q−12g(x)−ÿqpx2−p=q2−(l g+Á)sgn(s)=1ÿpqx p=q−12(g(x)−(l g+Á)sgn(s))thens˙s=1ÿpqx p=q−12(g(x)s−(l g+Á)sgn(s)s)6−1ÿpqÁx p=q−12|s|:Since p and q are positive odd integers and1¡p=q¡2,there is x p=q−12¿0for x2=0.Let (x2)=(1=ÿ)(p=q)Áx p=q−12.Then it hass˙s6− (x2)|s|(x2)¿0for x2=0:(11)Therefore,for the case x2=0,the condition for Lya-punov stability is satisÿed.The system states can reach the sliding mode s=0withinÿnite ing the following ar-guments can easily prove this:substituting the control(10) into system(1)yields˙x2=−ÿqpx2−p=q2+g(x)−(l g+Á)sgn(s):Then,for x2=0,it is obtained˙x2=g(x)−(l g+Á)sgn(s):For both s¿0and s¡0,it is obtained˙x26−Áand ˙x2¿Á,respectively,showing that x2=0is not an attractor.It also means that there exists a vicinity of x2=0such that for a small ¿0such that|x2|¡ ,there are˙x26−Áfor s¿0 and˙x2¿Áfor s¡0,respectively.Therefore,the crossing of the trajectory from the boundary of the vicinity x2= to x2=− for s¿0,and from x2=− to x2= for s¡0occurs inÿnite time.For other regions where|x2|¿ ,it can be easily concluded from(11)that the switching line s=0can be reached inÿnite time since we have˙x26−Áfor s¿0 and˙x2¿Áfor s¡0.The phase plane plot of the system is shown in Fig.1.Therefore,it is concluded that the sliding mode s=0can be reached from anywhere in the phase plane inÿnite time.Once the switching line is reached,one can easily see that NTSM(9)is equivalent to the TSM(2),so the time taken to reach the equilibrium point x1=0in the sliding mode is the same as in(8).Therefore,the NTSM manifold(9)can be reached inÿnite time.The states in the sliding mode will reach zero inÿnite time.This completes the proof.Remark1.It should be noted that the NTSM control(10) is always non-singular in the state space since1¡p=q¡2.Remark2.In order to eliminate chattering,a saturation function sat can be used to replace the sign function sgn.The1Fig.1.The phase plot of the system.relationshipbetween the steady-state errors of the NTSM system and the width of the layer surrounding the NTSM manifold s(t)=0is given by(Feng,Han,Stonier,&Man, 2000;Feng,Yu,&Man,2001)|s(t)|6’⇒|x(t)|6’and|x(t)|6(2ÿ’)q=p for t→∞:(12)4.Non-singular terminal sliding mode control for rigid manipulatorsIn this section,a non-singular terminal sliding mode con-trol is designed for the rigid n-link robot manipulatorM(q) q+C(q;˙q)+g(q)= (t)+d(t);(13) where q(t)is the n×1vector of joint angular position,M(q) the n×n symmetric positive deÿnite inertia matrix,C(q;˙q) the n×1vector containing Coriolis and centrifugal forces, g(q)the n×1gravitational torque,and (t)n×1vector of applied joint torques that are actually the control inputs,and d(t)n×1bounded input disturbances vector.It is assumed that rigid robotic manipulators have uncertainties,i.e.:M(q)=M0(q)+ M(q);C(q;˙q)=C0(q;˙q)+ C(q;˙q);g(q)=g0(q)+ g(q);where M0(q);C0(q;˙q)and g0(q)are the estimated terms; M(q); C(q;˙q)and g(q)are uncertain terms.Then, the dynamic equation of the manipulator can be written in the following form:M0(q) q+C0(q;˙q)+g0(q)= (t)+ (t)(14)2162Y.Feng et al./Automatica 38(2002)2159–2167with(t )=− M (q ) q − C (q ;˙q )q − g (q ):(15)The following assumptions are made about the robot dy-namics: M (q ) ¡ 0;(16) C (q ;˙q ) ¡ÿ0+ÿ1 q +ÿ2 ˙q 2;(17) g (q ) ¡ 0+ 1 q ;(18) (t ) ¡ 0+ 1 q + 2 ˙q 2;(19) (t ) ¡b 0+b 1 q +b 2 ˙q 2;(20)where 0;ÿ0;ÿ1;ÿ2; 0; 1; 0; 1; 2;b 0;b 1;b 2are positivenumbers.Suppose that q r is the desired input of the robot mani-pulator and ˙q r is the derivative of q r .Deÿne ”(t )=q −q r ;˙”(t )=˙q −˙q r ;e (t )=[”T (t )˙”T (t )]T .Then,the error equation of the rigid robotic manipulator can be obtained as follows:˙e (t )=Ae +B ;(21)whereA = 0I 00 ;B =0I;=M −10(q )(−C 0(q ;˙q )−g 0(q )−M 0(q ) q r + (t )+ (t )):It can be observed that the error dynamics (21)is of form (13).The NTSM control strategy developed in Section 3can be applied.The result is summarized in the following theorem.Before proceeding further,the notation of the frac-tional power of vectors is introduced.For a variable vector z ∈R n ,the fractional power of vectors is deÿned asz q=p =(z q=p 1;z q=p 2;:::;z q=p n )T;˙z q=p =(˙z q=p 1;˙z q=p 2;:::;˙zq=p n )T:Theorem 2.For the rigid n -link manipulator (14),if the NTSM manifold is chosen as s =”+C 1˙”p=q ;(22)where C 1=diag [c 11;:::;c 1n ]is a design matrix ,and the NTSM control is designed as follows ,then the system tracking error ”(t )will converge to zero in ÿnite time . = 0+u 0+u 1;(23)where0=C 0(q ;˙q )+g 0(q )+M 0(q ) q r ;(24)u 0=−q pM 0(q )C −11˙”2−p=q;(25)u 1=−q p [s T C 1diag (˙”p=q −1)M −10(q )]T s T C 1diag (˙”p=q −1)M −10(q )×[ s C 1diag (˙”p=q −1)M −10(q ) (b 0+b 1 q+b 2 ˙q 2)];(26)where b 0;b 1;b 2are supposed to be known parameters as in (20).Proof.Consider the following Lyapunov functionV =12s Ts :Di erentiating V with respect to time,and substituting (23)–(26)into it yields˙V =s T ˙s =s T ˙”+p qC 1diag (˙”p=q −1) ”=s T ˙”+p q C 1diag (˙”p=q −1)M −10(q )(u 1(t )+u 0(t ))+ (t ))=s T p q C 1diag (˙”p=q −1)M −10(q )(u 1(t )+ (t )) =−p qs C 1diag (˙”p=q −1)M −10(q ) ×(b 0+b 1 q +b 2 ˙q 2)+p qs T C 1diag (˙”p=q −1)M −10(q ) (t )6−p qs C 1diag (˙”p=q −1)M −10(q ) ×(b 0+b 1 q +b 2 ˙q 2)+p qs C 1diag (˙”p=q −1)M −10(q ) (t ) =−p qC 1diag (˙”p=q −1)M −10(q ) ×(b 0+b 1 q +b 2 ˙q 2− (t ) ) s that is˙V 6−Á(t ) s ¡0for s =0;(27)where Á(t )=p qC 1diag (˙”p=q −1)M −10(q ) ×{(b 0+b 1 q +b 2 q 2)− (t ) }¿0:Therefore,according to the Lyapunov stability criterion,the NTSM manifold s (t )in (22)converges to zero in ÿ-nite time.On the other hand,if s =”+C 1˙”p=q =0are reached as shown in Theorem 1,then the output trackingY.Feng et al./Automatica38(2002)2159–21672163 error of the robot manipulator”(t)=q−q r will convergeto zero inÿnite time.This completes the proof.Remark3.The NTSM control proposed in Theorem2solves the control of the rigid n-link manipulator,that repre-sents a special class of problems.The method proposed canbe extended to a class of n-order(n¿2)nonlinear dynam-ical systems,that represents a broader class of problems:˙x1=f1(x1;x2);˙x2=f2(x1;x2)+g(x1;x2)+B(x1;x2)u;(28)where x1=(x11;x12;:::;x1n)T∈R n;x2=(x21;x22;:::;x2n)T∈R n;f1and f2are smooth vector functions and g rep-resents the uncertainties and disturbances satisfyingg(x1;x2) 6l g where l g¿0;B is a non-singular ma-trix and u=(u1;u2;:::;u n)T∈R n is the control vector.It is further assumed that(x1;x2)=(0;0)if and only if(x1;˙x1)=(0;0).Note that many practical dynamical sys-tems satisfy this condition,for example,the mechanicalsystems.Robotic systems are certainly a special case of(28).Actually,the robotic system(14)is not in the form of(28),but it can be transformed to such form by the coordi-nates change.So,the proposed algorithm in the paper can beapplied to any plant,which can be transformed to(28).TheNTSM for system(28)can be designed as follows.Chooses=x1+ ˙x p=q1;(29)where =diag( 1;:::; n);( i¿0)for i=1;:::;n,and˙x p=q1is represented as˙x p=q1=(x p1=q111;:::;x p n=q n1n)T:If the NTSM control is designed as in(30),then the high-order nonlinear dynamical systems(28)will converge to the NTSM and the equilibrium point inÿnite time,re-spectively,u=−@f1@x2B(x1;x2)−1l g@f1@x2+Áss+@f1@x1f1(x1;x2)+@f1@x2f2(x1;x2)+ −1 −1diag(x2−p1=q q11;:::;x2−p n=q n1n);(30)where =diag(p1=q1;:::;p n=q n);p i and q i are positive odd integers and q i¡p i¡2q i for i=1;:::;n.5.Simulation studiesThe section presents two studies:one is the comparison study of performance between NTSM and TSM,and the other an application to a robot control problem.-0.0500.050.10.150.20.250.3-0.4-0.20.20.40.60.81.0x1x2Fig.2.Phase plot of NTSM system.parison studyIn order to analyze the e ectiveness of the NTSM control proposed and to compare NTSM with TSM,consider the simple second-order dynamical system below:˙x1=x2;˙x2=0:1sin20t+u:(31) The NTSM and TSM are chosen as follows:s NTSM=x1+x5=32;s TSM=x2+x3=51:Three control approaches are adopted:NTSM control, TSM control,and indirect NTSM control.The NTSM con-trol is designed according to(10)and NTSM(9),and TSM control is designed according to(5)and TSM(2).The in-direct NTSM control is designed in the same way as TSM, with only one di erence,that is when|x1|¡ ,let p=q, and is selected as0.001(Man&Yu,1997).Three sys-tems achieve the same terminal sliding mode behavior.So, only the phase plane response of the NTSM control system is provided,as shown in Fig.2.The control signals for the three kinds of systems are shown in Figs.3–5.It can be ob-viously seen some valuable facts.No singularity occurs at all in the case of NTSM control.When the trajectory crosses the x1=0axis,singularity occurs in the case of TSM con-trol.For the indirect NTSM control,although singularity is avoided by switching from the TSM to linear sliding mode, the e ect of the singularity can be seen,especially when decreases to zero.However when is relatively large, the sliding mode of the system is switching between TSM and the linear plane based sliding mode,and the advantage of TSM system is lost.Therefore,from the results of the above simulations,the occurrence of singularity problem in the TSM system,the drawback of the indirect NTSM,and the e ectiveness of the NTSM in avoiding singularity,are observed,respectively.2164Y.Feng et al./Automatica 38(2002)2159–21670.51.0 1.52.02.5-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1012time (sec.)uFig.3.Control signal of NTSM system.0.51.0 1.52.02.5-90-80-70-60-50-40-30-20-10010time(sec.)uFig.4.Control signal of TSM system.5.2.Control of a robotA simulation with a two-link rigid robot manipulator (seeFig.6)is performed for the purpose of evaluating the perfor-mance of the proposed NTSM control scheme.The dynamic equation of the manipulator model in Fig.6is given by a 11(q 2)a 12(q 2)a 12(q 2)a 22q 1 q 2 +−ÿ12(q 2)˙q 21−2ÿ12(q 2)˙q 1˙q 2ÿ12(q 2)˙q 22+ 1(q 1;q 2)g 2(q 1;q 2)g =1 2;(32)0.51.0 1.52.02.5-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1012time(sec.)uFig.5.Control signal of indirect TSMsystem.Fig.6.Two-link robot manipulator model.wherea 11(q 2)=(m 1+m 2)r 21+m 2r 22+2m 2r 1r 2cos(q 2)+J 1;a 12(q 2)=m 2r 22+m 2r 1r 2cos(q 2);a 22=m 2r 22+J 2;ÿ12(q 2)=m 2r 1r 2sin(q 2);1(q 1;q 2)=((m 1+m 2)r 1cos(q 2)+m 2r 2cos(q 1+q 2)); 2(q 1;q 2)=m 2r 2cos(q 1+q 2):The parameter values are r 1=1m ;r 2=0:8m ;J 1=5kg m ;J 2=5kg m ;m 1=0:5kg ;m 2=1:5kg.The desired reference signals are given by q r 1=1:25−(7=5)e −t +(7=20)e −4t ;q r 2=1:25+e −t −(1=4)e −4t :The initial values of the system are selected as q 1(0)=1:0;q 2(0)=1:5;˙q 1(0)=0:0;˙q 2(0)=0:0:Y.Feng et al./Automatica 38(2002)2159–216721650123456789100.20.40.60.81.01.21.41.6time(sec)O u t p u t t r a c k i n g o f j o i n t 1( r a d )Fig.7.Output tracking of joint 1using a boundary layer.123456789101.21.31.41.51.61.71.81.92.0time(sec)O u t p u t t r a c k i n g o f j o i n t 2( r a d )Fig.8.Output tracking of joint 2using a boundary layer.The nominal values of m 1and m 2are assumed to be ˆm 1=0:4kg ;ˆm 2=1:2kg :The boundary parameters of system uncertainties in (20)are assumed to be b 0=9:5;b 1=2:2;b 2=2:8:Suppose the tracking error and the 1st tracking error are tobe |˜q i |60:001and |˙˜q i |60:024;i =1,2,where ˜q i =q i −q riand ˙˜q i =˙q i −˙q ri ;i =1,ing the above performance index,it can be determined the parameters of NTSM manifolds.According to (12),it is obtained that |˜q i |6’i ;i =1;2:Let ’i =0:001;i =1;2(33)012345678910-15-10-5051015202530time(sec)C o n t r o l i n p u t o f j o i n t 1( N m )Fig.9.Control of joint 1using a boundary layer.12345678910-14-12-10-8-6-4024time(sec)C o n t r o l i n p u t o f j o i n t 2 (N m )Fig.10.Control of joint 2using a boundary layer.the tracking error of the system |˜q i |can be guaranteed.Onthe other hand,according to (12),it is obtained that |˙˜q i |6(2ÿ’i )q=p ;i =1;2:Let(2ÿ’i )q=p 60:024;i =1;2;thenq p6log 0:024log(2ÿ’i );i =1;2:(34)For simplicity,let ÿi =1;i =1;2.Then from (34),it is obtained thatq p 6log 0:024log(2×1×0:001)=0:60015;i =1;2:(35)2166Y.Feng et al./Automatica 38(2002)2159–2167-0.100.10.20.30.40.50.60.70.80.9-0.9-0.8-0.7-0.6-0.5-0.4-0.3-0.2-0.100.1e1(t)(rad)d e 1/d t (r a d /s )Fig.11.Phase plot of tracking error of joint 1.-0.5-0.4-0.3-0.2-0.10.100.20.30.40.50.6e2(t)(rad)d e 2/d t (r a d /s )Fig.12.Phase plot of tracking error of joint 2.Let qp=0:6:Now,the parameters of the TSM can be obtained as:q =3;p =5(there are many other options as well).Finally,the NTSM models are obtained as follows:s 1=˜q 1+˙˜q 5=31=0;s 2=˜q 2+˙˜q 5=32=0:In order to eliminate the chattering,the boundary layermethod is adopted (Slotine &Li,1991)in the NTSM con-trol.The simulation results are shown in Figs.7–12.Figs.7and 8show the output tracking of joints 1and 2.Figs.9and 10depict the control signals of joints 1and 2,respec-tively.Figs.11and 12show the phase plot of tracking error of joints 1and 2,respectively.One can easily see that the system states track the desired reference signals.First,theoutput tracking errors of the system reach the terminal slid-ing mode manifold s =0in ÿnite time,then they converge to zero along s =0in ÿnite time.It can be clearly seen that neither singularity nor chattering occurs in the two control signals.6.ConclusionsIn this paper,a global non-singular TSM controller for a second-order nonlinear dynamic systems with parameter uncertainties and external disturbances has been proposed.The time taken to reach the manifold from any initial sys-tem states and the time taken to reach the equilibrium point in the sliding mode have been proved to be ÿnite.The new terminal sliding mode manifold proposed can enable the elimination of the singularity problem associated with con-ventional terminal sliding mode control.The global NSTM controller proposed has been used for the control design of an n -degree-of-freedom rigid manipulator.Simulation results are presented to validate the analysis.The proposed controller can be easily applied to practical control of robots as given the advances of microprocessors,the vari-ables with fractional power can be easily built into control algorithms.ReferencesBhat,S.P.,&Bernstein, D.S.(1997).Finite-time stability of homogeneous systems.Proceedings of American control conference (pp.2513–2514).Feng,Y.,Han,F.,Yu,X.,Stonier,D.,&Man,Z.(2000).Tracking precision analysis of terminal sliding mode control systems with saturation functions.In X.Yu,J.-X.Xu (Eds.),Advances in variable structure systems :Analysis,integration and applications (pp.325–334).Singapore:World Scientiÿc.Feng,Y.,Yu,X.,&Man,Z.(2001).Non singular terminal sliding mode control and its applications to robot manipulators.Proceedings of 2001IEEE international symposium on circuits and systems ,Vol.III (pp.545–548).Sydney,May 2001.Haimo,V.T.(1986).Finite time controllers.SIAM Journal of Control and Optimization ,24(4),760–770.Man,Z.,Paplinski,A.P.,&Wu,H.(1994).A robust MIMO terminal sliding mode control scheme for rigid robotic manipulators.IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control ,39(12),2464–2469.Man,Z.,&Yu,X.(1997).Terminal sliding mode control of mimo linear systems.IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I:Fundamental Theory and Applications ,44(11),1065–1070.Slotine,J.E.,&Li,W.(1991).Applied non-linear control .Englewood Cli s,NJ:Prentice-Hall.Tang,Y.(1998).Terminal sliding mode control for rigid robots.Automatica ,34(1),51–56.Utkin,V.I.(1992).Sliding modes in control optimization .Berlin,Heidelberg:Springer.Wu,Y.,Yu,X.,&Man,Z.(1998).Terminal sliding mode control design for uncertain dynamic systems.Systems and Control Letters ,34,281–288.Yu,X.,&Man,Z.(1996).Model reference adaptive control systems with terminal sliding modes.International Journal of Control ,64(6),1165–1176.Yurl,B.S.,&James,M.B.(1988).Continuous sliding mode control.Proceedings of American Control Conference (pp.562–563).Y.Feng et al./Automatica 38(2002)2159–21672167Yong Feng received the B.S.degree from the Department of Control Engineering in 1982,and M.S.degree from the Depart-ment of Electrical Engineering in 1985and Ph.D.degree from the Department of Con-trol Engineering in 1991,in Harbin Insti-tute of Technology,China,respectively.He has been with the Department of Electri-cal Engineering,Harbin Institute of Tech-nology since 1985,and is currently a Pro-fessor.He was a visiting scholar in the Faculty of Informatics and Communication,Australia,from May 2000to November 2001.He has authored and co-authored over 50journal and conference papers.He has published 3books.He has completed over 10research projects,including process control,arc welding robot,climbing wall robot,CNC system,a direct drive motor and its control system,the electronics and simulation of CCD digital camera,and so on.His current research interests are nonlinear control systems,sampled data systems,robot control,digital camera modelling andsimulation.Xinghuo Yu received B.Sc.(EEE)and M.Sc.(EEE)from the University of Sci-ence and Technology of China in 1982and 1984respectively,and Ph.D.degree from South-East University,China in 1987.From 1987to 1989,he was Research Fellow with Institute of Automation,Chi-nese Academy of Sciences,Beijing,China.From 1989to 1991,he was a Postdoctoral Fellow with the Applied Mathematics De-partment,University of Adelaide,Australia.From 1991to 2002,he was with CentralQueensland University,Rockhampton,Australia where he was Lecturer,Senior Lecturer,Associate Professor then Professor of Intelligent Sys-tems and the Associate Dean (Research)of the Faculty of Informatics and Communication.Since March 2002,he has been with the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology,Australia,where he is a Professor,Director of Software and Networks,and Deputy Head of School.He has also held Visiting Profes-sor positions in City University of Hong Kong and Bogazici University(Turkey).He has recently been conferred as Honorary Professor of Cen-tral Queensland University.He is Guest Professor of Harbin Institute of Technology (China),Huazhong University of Science and Technology (China),and Southeast University (China).Professor Yu’s research inter-ests include sliding mode and nonlinear control,chaos and chaos control,soft computing and applications.He has published over 200refereed pa-pers in technical journals,books and conference proceedings.He has also coedited four research books “Complex Systems:Mechanism of Adapta-tion”(IOS Press,1994),“Advances in Variable Structure Systems:Anal-ysis,Integration and Applications”(World Scientiÿc,2001),“Variable Structure Systems:Towards the 21st Century”(Springer-Verlag,2002),“Transforming Regional Economies and Communities with Information Technology”(Greenwood,2002).Prof.Yu serves as an Associate Editor of IEEE Trans Circuits and Systems Part I and is on the Editorial Board of International Journal of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science.He was General Chair of the 6th IEEE International Workshopon Variable Structure Systems held in December 2000on the Gold Coast,Australia.He was the sole recipient of the 1995Central Queensland University Vice Chancellor’s Award forResearch.Zhihong Man received the B.E.degree from Shanghai Jiaotong University,China,the M.S.degree from the Chinese Academy of Sciences,and the Ph.D.from the Uni-versity of Melbourne,Australia,all in electrical and electronic engineering,in 1982,1986and 1993,respectively.From 1994to 1996,he was a Lecturer in the Department of Computer and Commu-nication Engineering,Edith Cowan Uni-versity,Australia.From 1996to 2000,he was a Lecturer and then a SeniorLecturer in the Department of Electrical Engineering,the University of Tasmania,Australia.In 2001,he was a Visiting Senior Fellow in the School of Computer Engineering,Nanyang Technological University,Singapore.Since 2002,he has been an Associate Professor of Computer Engineering at Nanyang Technological University.His research interests are in robotics,fuzzy logic control,neural networks,sliding mode control and adaptive signal processing.He has published more than 120journal and conference papers in these areas.。
