A Linear Active Disturbance Rejection Control for a Ball and Rigid Triangle System

This paper proposes an application of linear flatness control along with active disturbance rejection control (ADRC) for the local stabilization and trajectory tracking problems in the underactuated ball and rigid triangle system. To this end, an observer-based linear controller of the ADRC type is designed based on the flat tangent linearization of the system around its corresponding unstable equilibrium rest position. It was accomplished through two decoupled linear extended observers and a single linear output feedback controller, with disturbance cancelation features. The controller guarantees locally exponentially asymptotic stability for the stabilization problem and practical local stability in the solution of the tracking error. An advantage of combining the flatness and the ADRC methods is that it possible to perform online estimates and cancels the undesirable effects of the higher-order nonlinearities discarded by the linearization approximation. Simulation indicates that the proposed controller behaves remarkably well, having an acceptable domain of attraction.