Receding horizon sliding control for linear and nonlinear systems

Sliding mode control (SMC) is one of the few controller design methodologies that can be applied to highly nonlinear and uncertain systems. In most mechanical applications, a smoothed version of SMC that we call “sliding control” is employed to keep the system trajectories close to but not necessarily on a stable differential/difference manifold. In this paper, we propose an extension to the sliding control algorithm that includes a receding horizon approach. This allows the designer to incorporate information about future desired output trajectories as well as knowledge of future disturbances. In addition, it allows the designer to include bounds on the inputs and states of the system. We refer to this control methodology as receding horizon sliding control (RHSC) and evaluate its effectiveness using two example applications.