A new continuous velocity observer formulation for a class of uncertain nonlinear mechanical systems

In this study, we present a smooth robust velocity observer for a class of uncertain nonlinear mechanical systems. The smoothness of the observers is guaranteed by utilizing hyperbolic tangent function as opposed to signum-type functions applied in most robust and sliding mode observers found in the literature. The proposed observer does not require a priori knowledge of an upper bound of the uncertain system dynamics and introduces a time-varying observer gain for uncertainty compensation. Practical stability of the observer error is ensured via Lyapunov-type stability analysis. Numerical simulation studies backed up by experimental results are presented to illustrate the performance of the proposed observer.