Nonsingular terminal sliding mode approach applied to synchronize chaotic systems with unknown parameters and nonlinear inputs

This paper deals with the design of a novel nonsingular terminal sliding mode controller for finite-time synchronization of two different chaotic systems with fully unknown parameters and nonlinear inputs. We propose a novel nonsingular terminal sliding surface and prove its finite-time convergence to zero. We assume that both the master's and the slave's system parameters are unknown in advance. Proper adaptation laws are derived to tackle the unknown parameters. An adaptive sliding mode control law is designed to ensure the existence of the sliding mode in finite time. We prove that both reaching and sliding mode phases are stable in finite time. An estimation of convergence time is given. Two illustrative examples show the effectiveness and usefulness of the proposed technique. It is worthwhile noticing that the introduced nonsingular terminal sliding mode can be applied to a wide variety of nonlinear control problems.