Constant disturbance rejection and zero steady state tracking error for nonlinear systems design

A relatively practical method of suppressing the effect of constant disturbances on nonlinear systems is presented. By adding an integrator to a stabilising controller, it is possible to achieve both constant disturbance rejection and zero tracking error. Sufficient conditions for the rejection of a constant input disturbance are given. We give both local and global conditions such that the inclusion of an integrator in the closed loop maintains closed loop stability. The analysis is based on singular perturbation theory. Furthermore, we also present some alternative locations for adding an integrator into the closed loop system and extend these methods to deal with Multiple-input Multiple-output nonlinear systems. Finally, we implement our method in the control of a simulated helicopter model. The simulation results show that this method achieves satisfactory performance.