On Stability Analysis of Active Disturbance Rejection Control for

Nonlinear Time-Varying Plants with Unknown Dynamics

Qing Zheng
1
, Linda Q. Gao
2
, and Zhiqiang Gao
1,3
AbstractThis paper concerns with stability characteristics
of active disturbance rejection control for nonlinear time-
varying plants that are largely unknown. In particular, as-
ymptotic stability is established where the plant dynamics is
completely known. In the face of large dynamic uncertainties,
estimation and tracking errors are shown to be bounded, with
their bounds monotonously decreasing with their respective
bandwidths.
Index TermsLinear active disturbance rejection control,
linear extended state observer, uncertain systems, stability.
I. INTRODUCTION
Most physical plants in real world are not just nonlinear
and time-varying but also highly uncertain. Control system
design for such systems has been the focus of much of the
recent developments under the umbrella of robust, adaptive,
and nonlinear control. Most of the existing results, however,
are obtained presupposing that a fairly detailed and accurate
mathematical model of the plant is available. The small gain
theorem based robustness analysis does allow a small amount
of uncertainties in plant dynamics, but not anywhere near
the magnitude often encountered in practice. As the well-
known control theorist Roger Brockett puts it: If there is no
uncertainty in the system, the control, or the environment,
feedback control is largely unnecessary [1]. The assump-
tion that a physical plant, without feedback, behaves rather
closely as its mathematical model describes, as the point of
departure in control system design, does not reect either the
intent of feedback control, or the physical reality.
The active disturbance rejection control (ADRC) was
proposed as an alternative paradigm to address this funda-
mental issue [2]. The main difference in the design concept
pertains to the question of how much model information
is needed. Recognizing the vulnerability of the reliance
on accurate mathematical model, there has been a gradual
recognition over the years that active disturbance estimation
is a viable alternative to an accurate plant model. That is,
if the disturbance, representing the discrepancy between the
plant and its model, is estimated in real time, then the
plant-model mismatch can be effectively compensated for,
making the model based design tolerant of a large amount
of uncertainties. The focal point is how external disturbance
and unknown dynamics can be estimated. Several classes of
approach are outlined below, including the unknown input
1
Center for Advanced Control Technologies, Fenn College of Engineer-
ing, Cleveland State University, Cleveland, OH 44115, USA.
2
Department of Mathematics, North Central College, Naperville, IL
60540, USA.
3
The Corresponding author. E-mail: z.gao@csuohio.edu. Tel:1-216-687-
3528, Fax:1-216-687-5405.
observer (UIO) [3]-[10], the disturbance observer (DOB)
[11]-[18], the perturbation observer (POB) [19]-[22], and the
extended state observer (ESO) [2], [23]-[24].
UIO is the earliest disturbance estimator, going back to
1969, where the external disturbance is formulated as an
augmented state and estimated using a state observer. DOB
is another main class of disturbance estimators, based on
the inverse of the nominal transfer function of the plant,
which is avoided in some of the variations of DOB [25]-
[26]. POB is another class of disturbance estimators, similar
to DOB in concept but formulated in state space in discrete
time domain.
It was shown that UIO and DOB are equivalent in terms of
disturbance estimation [16] but UIO also provides estimation
of the states. Similar to UIO, ESO is also a state space
approach. What sets ESO apart from UIO and DOB is that
it is conceived to estimate not only the external disturbance
but also plant dynamics. Among the disturbance estimators,
ESO requires the least amount of plant information.
All estimators above, including UIO, DOB, POB and
ESO, prove to be effective practical solutions. But how fast
and in what range the disturbance and unknown dynamics
can be estimated are not obvious. In particular, both UIO
and DOB are originally formulated to estimate the external
disturbances but later adopted to estimate the unknown
plant dynamics as well, with very little analytical support
on how this can be achieved. Even when limited stability
analysis was performed, only boundedness of estimation or
compensation error was obtained, while the actual bound of
the error is largely unknown. Some robust stability analysis,
based on small gain theorem, was performed for UIO and
DOB [16]-[18] but the results tend to be quite conservative
by nature and limited to linear and time-invariant plants. For
nonlinear plants, only limited results on stability properties
are obtained for robot manipulators [12], [15].
In a rare exception, the approach proposed by [27] is
designed specically to estimate both unknown dynamics
and disturbance with asymptotic stability of the closed-
loop system rmly established. But the practicality method
is quickly called into question as the observer, hence the
stability proof, requires the use of higher order derivatives
of the output, rendering the system susceptible to noise
corruption. In short, for those effective practical solutions,
there seems to be a lack of rigorous analysis of the estimation
error, especially its bound. But for those methods rmly
rooted in mathematical rigor, the utility is often questionable.
This paper specically addresses this issue, pertaining to
ESO and the associated ADRC.
Proceedings of the
46th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control
New Orleans, LA, USA, Dec. 12-14, 2007
ThB07.6
1-4244-1498-9/07/$25.00 2007 IEEE. 3501
ADRC, proposed by Han in 1995, is designed to deal
with those plants with large amount of uncertainties both in
dynamics and external disturbances [23]. It was further sim-
plied to linear ADRC (LADRC), using linear ESO (LESO)
in [24], which makes it extremely simple and practical
[28]. The purpose of this paper is to show analytically how
LADRC achieves excellent performance, even when the plant
is unknown, nonlinear and time-varying. The convergence
and the bounds of the estimation and tracking errors are pre-
sented. In particular, at one extreme, the asymptotic stability
of LADRC is proved where the accurate mathematical model
of the plant is given. At the other extreme, where the plant
dynamics is largely unknown, the upper bounds of errors are
derived.
The paper is organized as follows. The analyses for
the LESO and for LADRC are presented in Section II
and Section III respectively, with and without a detailed
mathematical model. The paper ends with a few concluding
remarks in Section IV.
II. ANALYSIS OF LESO ERROR DYNAMICS
Consider a generally nonlinear time-varying dynamic sys-
tem with single-input, u, and single-output y,
y
(n)
(t) = f(y
(n1)
(t) , , y (t) , w(t)) + bu(t) . (1)
where w is the external disturbance and b is a given constant.
Here f
_
y
(n1)
(t) , y
(n2)
(t) , , y (t) , w(t)
_
, or simply
denoted as f, represents the nonlinear time-varying dynamics
of the plant that is unknown. That is, for this plant, only the
order and the parameter b are given. The ADRC is a unique
method designed to tackle this problem. It is centered around
estimation of, and compensation for, f. To this end, assuming
f is differentiable and let h =

f, (1) can be written in an
augmented state space form
x
1
= x
2
.
.
.
x
n1
= x
n
x
n
= x
n+1
+ bu
x
n+1
= h(x, w)
y = x
1
(2)
where x = [x
1
, x
2
, , x
n+1
]
T
R
n+1
, u R and y R
are the state, input and output of the system, respectively.
Any state observer of (2), will estimate the derivatives of y
and f since the latter is now a state in the extended state
model. Such observers are known as ESO. The convergence
of the estimation error for a particular ESO, LESO, is shown
below.
A. Convergence of the LESO with the Given Model of the
Plant
With u and y as inputs and the function h given, the LESO
of (2) is given as

x
1
= x
2
+ l
1
(x
1
x
1
)
.
.
.

x
n1
= x
n
+ l
n1
(x
1
x
1
)

x
n
= x
n+1
+ l
n
(x
1
x
1
) + bu

x
n+1
= l
n+1
(x
1
x
1
) + h( x, w)
(3)
where x = [ x
1
, x
2
, , x
n+1
]
T
R
n+1
, and l
i
, i =
1, 2, , n+1, are the observer gain parameters to be chosen.
In particular, let us consider a special case where the gains
are chosen as
[l
1
, l
2
, , l
n+1
] =
_

1
,
2
o

2
, ,
n+1
o

n+1

(4)
with
o
> 0. Here
i
, i = 1, 2, , n + 1, are selected
such that the characteristic polynomial s
n+1
+
1
s
n
+ +

n
s +
n+1
is Hurwitz. For simplicity,let s
n+1
+
1
s
n
+
+
n
s +
n+1
= (s + 1)
n+1
where
i
=
(n+1)!
i!(n+1i)!
, i =
1, 2, , n + 1. Then the characteristic polynomial of (3)
is

o
(s) = (s +
o
)
n
. (5)
and
o
, the observer bandwidth, becomes the only tuning
parameter of the observer.
Let x
i
= x
i
x
i
, i = 1, 2, , n + 1. From (2) and (3),
the observer estimation error can be shown as

x
1
= x
2

o

1
x
1
.
.
.

x
n1
= x
n

n1
o

n1
x
1

x
n
= x
n+1

n
o

n
x
1

x
n+1
= h(x, w) h( x, w)
n+1
o

n+1
x
1
.
(6)
Now let
i
=
xi

i1
o
, i = 1, 2, , n + 1, then (6) can be
rewritten as
=
o
A + B
h(x, w) h( x, w)

n
o
(7)
where A =
_

1
1 0 0

2
0 1 0
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

n
0 0 1

n+1
0 0 0
_

_
, B =
[0 0 0 1]
T
. Here A is Hurwitz for the
i
, i =
1, 2, , n + 1, chosen above.
Theorem 1: Assuming h(x, w) is globally Lipschitz with
respect to x, there exists a constant
o
> 0, such that
lim
t
x
i
(t) = 0, i = 1, 2, , n + 1.
Proof. Since A is Hurwitz, there exists a unique positive
denite matrix P such that A
T
P + PA = I. Choose the
Lyapunov function as V () =
T
P. Hence

V () =
o

2
+ 2
T
PB
h(x, w) h( x, w)

n
o
. (8)
46th IEEE CDC, New Orleans, USA, Dec. 12-14, 2007 ThB07.6
3502
Since the function h(x, w) is globally Lipschitz with re-
spect to x, that is, there exists a constant c

such that
|h(x, w) h( x, w)| c

x x for all x, x, and w, , it

follows that
2
T
PB
|h(x, w) h( x, w)|

n
o
2
T
PBc

x x

n
o
. (9)
When
o
1, one has
x x

n
o
=
x

n
o
=

2
1
+
2
2

2
o
+
2
3

4
o
++
2
n+1

2n
o

n
o
. Therefore, we obtain
2
T
PB
|h(x, w) h( x, w)|

n
o
c
2
(10)
where c = 1 + PBc

2
. From (8) and (10), one has

V () (
o
c)
2
. (11)
That is,

V () < 0 if
o
> c. Therefore, lim
t
x
i
(t) = 0, i =
1, 2, , n + 1, for
o
> c. Q.E.D.
B. Convergence of the LESO with Plant Dynamics Largely
Unknown
In many real world scenarios, the plant dynamics repre-
sented by f is mostly unknown. In this case, the LESO in
(3) now takes the form of

x
1
= x
2
+ l
1
(x
1
x
1
)
.
.
.

x
n1
= x
n
+ l
n1
(x
1
x
1
)

x
n
= x
n+1
+ l
n
(x
1
x
1
) + bu

x
n+1
= l
n+1
(x
1
x
1
) .
(12)
Consequently, the observer estimation error in (6) becomes

x
1
= x
2

o

1
x
1
.
.
.

x
n1
= x
n

n1
o

n1
x
1

x
n
= x
n+1

n
o

n
x
1

x
n+1
= h(x, w)
n+1
o

n+1
x
1
(13)
and Equation (7) is now
=
o
A + B
h(x, w)

n
o
. (14)
Theorem 2: Assuming h(x, w) is bounded, there exist a
constant
i
> 0 and a nite T
1
> 0 such that | x
i
(t)|

i
, i = 1, 2, , n + 1, t T
1
> 0 and
o
> 0.
Furthermore,
i
= O
_
1

k
o
_
, for some positive integer k.
Proof. Solving (14), it follows that
(t) = e
oAt
(0) +
_
t
0
e
oA(t)
B
h(x() , w)

n
o
d. (15)
Let
p (t) =
_
t
0
e
oA(t)
B
h(x(), w)

n
o
d, (16)
since h(x(), w) is bounded, that is, |h(x(), w)| ,
where is a positive constant, for i = 1, 2, , n + 1, we
have
|p
i
(t)|

n+1
o
_

_
A
1
B
_
i

_
A
1
e
oAt
B
_
i

.
(17)
For A and B dened in (7), A
1
=
_

_
0 0 0
1
n+1
1 0 0
1
n+1
0 1 0
2
n+1
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
0 0 1
n
n+1
_

_
, and

_
A
1
B
_
i

(18)
where = max
i=2, ,n+1
_
1
n+1
,
i1
n+1
_
. Since A is Hurwitz,
there exists a nite time T
1
> 0 such that

_
e
oAt

ij

n+1
o
(19)
for all t T
1
, i, j = 1, 2, , n + 1. Hence

_
e
oAt
B

n+1
o
(20)
for all t T
1
, i = 1, 2, , n + 1. Note that T
1
depends on

o
A. Let A
1
=
_

_
s
11
. . . s
1,n+1
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
s
n+1,1
s
n+1,n+1
_

_ and e
oAt
=
_

_
d
11
. . . d
1,n+1
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
d
n+1,1
d
n+1,n+1
_

_. One has

_
A
1
e
oAt
B
_
i

n+1
o
(21)
for all t T
1
, i = 1, 2, , n + 1, where =
max
i=2, ,n+1
_
1
n+1
, 1 +
i1
n+1
_
. From (17), (18), and (21), we
obtain
|p
i
(t)|

n+1
o
+

2n+2
o
(22)
for all t T
1
, i = 1, 2, , n+1. Let
sum
(0) = |
1
(0)| +
|
2
(0)| + + |
n+1
(0)|. It follows that

_
e
oAt
(0)

sum
(0)

n+1
o
(23)
for all t T
1
, i = 1, 2, , n + 1. From (15), one has
|
i
(t)|

_
e
oAt
(0)

+ |p
i
(t)| . (24)
Let x
sum
(0) = | x
1
(0)| + | x
2
(0)| + + | x
n+1
(0)|. Ac-
cording to
i
=
xi

i1
o
and Equations (22)-(24), we have
| x
i
(t)|

x
sum
(0)

n+1
o

ni+2
o
+

2ni+3
o
=
i
(25)
for all t T
1
, i = 1, 2, , n + 1. Q.E.D.
46th IEEE CDC, New Orleans, USA, Dec. 12-14, 2007 ThB07.6
3503
In summary, it has been proven that 1) when the plant
model is given, the dynamic system describing the estimation
error of the LESO (3) is asymptotically stable; and 2) in the
absence of such model, the estimation error of the LESO (12)
is bounded and its upper bound monotonously decreases with
the observer bandwidth, as shown in (25). The stability of
LADRC, where LESO is employed, is analyzed next.
III. STABILITY ANALYSIS OF LADRC
Assume that the control design objective is to make the
output of the plant in (1) follow a given, bounded, reference
signal r, whose derivatives, r, r, , r
(n)
, are also bounded.
Let [r
1
, r
2
, , r
n
, r
n+1
]
T
= [r, r
1
, , r
n1
, r
n
]
T
. Em-
ploying the LESO of (2) in the form of (3) or (12), the
ADRC control law is given as
u = [k
1
(r
1
x
1
) + k
2
(r
2
x
2
) +
+k
n
(r
n
x
n
) x
n+1
+ r
n+1
] /b (26)
where k
i
, i = 1, 2, , n, are the controller gain parameters
selected to make s
n
+k
n
s
n1
+ +k
1
Hurwitz. The closed-
loop system becomes
y
(n)
(t) = (f x
n+1
) + k
1
(r
1
x
1
) + k
2
(r
2
x
2
)
+ + k
n
(r
n
x
n
) + r
n+1
. (27)
Note that with a well-designed ESO, the rst term in the
right hand side (RHS) of (27) is negligible and the rest of
the terms in the RHS of (27) constitutes a generalized PD
controller with a feedforward term. It generally works very
well in applications but the issues to be addressed are: 1) the
stability of the closed-loop system (27); and 2) the bound of
the tracking error. Note that the separation principal does not
apply here because of the rst term in the RHS of (27).
A. Convergence of the LADRC with the Given Model of the
Plant
Consider
(t) = N (t) + g (t) , (28)
where (t) = [
1
(t) ,
2
(t) , ,
n
(t)]
T
R
n
, g (t) =
[g
1
(t) , g
2
(t) , , g
n
(t)]
T
R
n
, and N is an nn matrix.
Lemma 1: If N is Hurwitz and lim
t
g (t) = 0, then
lim
t
(t) = 0.
Proof. In (28), since lim
t
g (t) = 0, then for any > 0,
there is a nite time T
2
> 0 such that g (t) for all
t T
2
. The response of (28) can be written as
(t) = e
Nt
(0) +
t
_
0
e
N(t)
g () d. (29)
When t T
2
, we have
(t)
_
_
e
Nt
(0)
_
_
+
_
_
e
Nt
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
T2
_
0
e
N
g () d
_
_
_
_
_
_
+
t
_
T2
_
_
_e
N(t)
_
_
_d. (30)
Now consider the third term of right hand side of (30). For
N, there is nonsingular matrix J and block diagonal matrix
= block diag {
1
, ,
m
} such that
N = JJ
1
(31)
and each
i
has a single eigenvalue
i
with its algebraic
multiplicities being q
i
. Suppose
1

2

m
. Let
q = max {q
1
, q
2
, , q
m
}. Let us choose
1
or

for
the matrix norm. It follows that
_
_
_e
(t)
_
_
_ e
1(t)
q1

k=0
c
k
(t )
k
, t , (32)
where c
k
are positive constants. Note that
_
_
_e
N(t)
_
_
_ J
_
_
_e
(t)
_
_
_
_
_
J
1
_
_
. (33)
Hence we have
(t)
_
_
e
Nt
(0)
_
_
+
_
_
e
Nt
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
T2
_
0
e
N
g () d
_
_
_
_
_
_
+J
_
_
J
1
_
_
q1

k=0
c
k
t
_
T2
e
1(t)
(t )
k
d
=
_
_
e
Nt
(0)
_
_
+
_
_
e
Nt
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
T2
_
0
e
N
g () d
_
_
_
_
_
_
+e
1(tT2)
J
_
_
J
1
_
_
q1

k=0
c
k
1

k+1
1

j=0
(1)
j
k!
(k j)!
[
1
(t T
2
)]
kj
+J
_
_
J
1
_
_
q1

k=0
c
k
(1)
k
k!

k+1
1
. (34)
From (34), it can be seen that
lim
t
_
_
e
Nt
(0)
_
_
= 0
lim
t
_
_
e
Nt
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
T2
_
0
e
N
g () d
_
_
_
_
_
= 0
lim
t
_
e
1(tT2)
J
_
_
J
1
_
_
q1

k=0
c
k
1

k+1
1

j=0
(1)
j
k!
(kj)!
[
1
(t T
2
)]
kj
_
= 0.
(35)
Therefore there exists T
3
> T
2
such that
_
_
e
Nt
(0)
_
_
, t T
3
,
_
_
e
Nt
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
T2
_
0
e
N
g () d
_
_
_
_
_
, t T
3
,
e
1(tT2)
J
_
_
J
1
_
_
_
q1

k=0
c
k
1

k+1
1

j=0
(1)
j
k!
(kj)!
[
1
(t T
2
)]
kj
_
, t T
3
.
(36)
46th IEEE CDC, New Orleans, USA, Dec. 12-14, 2007 ThB07.6
3504
Let c

= J
_
_
J
1
_
_
q1

k=0
c
k
(1)
k
k!

k+1
1
. Then we have
(t) (c

+ 3) , t T
3
. (37)
Since can be arbitrarily small, it can be concluded that
lim
t
(t) = 0.
Theorem 3: Assuming h(x, w) is globally Lipschitz with
respect to x, there exist constants
o
> 0 and
c
> 0, such
that the closed-loop system (27) is asymptotically stable.
Proof. Dene e
i
= r
i
x
i
, i = 1, 2, , n. From (26),
one has
u = [k
1
(e
1
+ x
1
) + + k
n
(e
n
+ x
n
)
(x
n+1
x
n+1
) + r
n+1
} /b. (38)
It follows that
e
1
= r
1
x
1
= r
2
x
2
= e
2
,
.
.
.
e
n1
= r
n1
x
n1
= r
n
x
n
= e
n
,
e
n
= r
n
x
n
= r
n+1
(x
n+1
+ bu)
= k
1
(e
1
+ x
1
)
k
n
(e
n
+ x
n
) x
n+1
.
(39)
Let e = [e
1
, e
2
, , e
n
]
T
R
n
, x = [ x
1
, x
2
, , x
n+1
]
T

R
n+1
, then
e (t) = A
e
e (t) + A
x
x(t) (40)
where A
e
=
_

_
0 1 0 0
0 0 1 0
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
0 0 0 1
k
1
k
2
k
n1
k
n
_

_
and
A
x
=
_

_
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
0 0 0 0
k
1
k
2
k
n
1
_

_
.
Since k
i
, i = 1, 2, , n, are selected such that the
characteristic polynomial s
n
+ k
n
s
n1
+ + k
1
is Hur-
witz, A
e
is Hurwitz. For tuning simplicity, we just let
s
n
+ k
n
s
n1
+ + k
1
= (s +
c
)
n
where
c
> 0 and
k
i
=
n!
(i1)!(n+1i)!

n+1i
c
, i = 1, 2, , n. This makes
c
,
which is the controller bandwidth, the only tuning parameter
to be adjusted for the controller.
From Theorem 1, lim
t
A
x
x(t) = 0 if h(x, w) is
globally Lipschitz with respect to x. Since A
e
is Hurwitz,
according to Theorem 1 and Lemma 1, it can be concluded
that: assuming h(x, w) is globally Lipschitz with respect
to x, there exist constants
o
> 0 and
c
> 0, such that
lim
t
e
i
(t) = 0, i = 1, 2, , n. Q.E.D.
B. Convergence of the LADRC with Plant Dynamics Largely
Unknown
Now we consider the case where the plant dynamics is
unknown and the LESO in the form of (12) is used instead.
Theorem 4: Assuming h(x, w) is bounded, there exist a
constant
i
> 0 and a nite time T
5
> 0 such that |e
i
(t)|

i
, i = 1, 2, , n, t T
5
> 0,
o
> 0, and
c
> 0.
Furthermore,
i
= O
_
1

j
c
_
for some positive integer j.
Proof. Solving (40), we have
e (t) = e
Aet
e (0) +
_
t
0
e
Ae(t)
A
x
x() d. (41)
According to (40) and Theorem 2, one has
[A
x
x()]
i=1, , n1
= 0
|[A
x
x()]
n
| k
s

i
= , t T
1
(42)
where k
s
= 1 +
n

i=1
k
i
. Similar to Theorem 3, choose
k
i
=
n!
(i1)!(n+1i)!

n+1i
c
, i = 1, 2, , n, such that
A
e
is Hurwitz. Dene = [0 0 0 ]
T
. Let (t) =
_
t
0
e
Ae(t)
A
x
x() d. It follows that
|
i
(t)|

_
A
1
e

_
i

_
A
1
e
e
Aet

_
i

. (43)
and

_
A
1
e

_
1

=

k1
=

n
c

_
A
1
e

_
i

i=2, , n
= 0
(44)
Since A
e
is Hurwitz, there exists a nite time T
4
> 0 such
that

_
e
Aet

ij

n+1
c
(45)
for all t T
4
, i, j = 1, 2, , n. Note that T
4
depends on
A
e
. Let T
5
= max {T
1
, T
4
}. It follows that

_
e
Aet

_
i

n+1
c
(46)
for all t T
5
, i = 1, 2, , n, and

_
A
1
e
e
Aet

_
i

_
1 +
n

i=2
k
i

n
c

n+1
c

i=1

n+1
c

i=2, ,n
(47)
for all t T
5
. From (43), (44), and (47), we obtain
|
i
(t)|
_

n
c
+
1 +
n

i=2
k
i

n
c

n+1
c

i=1

n+1
c

i=2, ,n
(48)
for all t T
5
. Let e
Aet
=
_

_
o
11
. . . o
1n
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
o
n1
o
nn
_

_ and e
s
(0) =
|e
1
(0)| + |e
2
(0)| + + |e
n
(0)|. It follows that

_
e
Aet
e (0)

e
s
(0)

n+1
c
(49)
46th IEEE CDC, New Orleans, USA, Dec. 12-14, 2007 ThB07.6
3505
for all t T
5
, i = 1, 2, , n. From (41), one has
|e
i
(t)|

_
e
Aet
e (0)

+ |
i
(t)| . (50)
According to (42), (48)-(50), we have
|e
i
(t)|
_

_
e
s
(0)

n+1
c
+
k
s

n
c
+
_
1 +
n

i=2
k
i
_
k
s

2n+1
c

i=1
e
s
(0) + k
s

n+1
c

i=2, ,n
(51)
for all t T
5
, i = 1, 2, , n, where
i
=
max
_
_
_
es(0)

n+1
c
+
ksi

n
c
+
(1+
n

i=2
ki)ksi

2n+1
c
,
es(0)+ksi

n+1
c
_
_
_
. Q.E.D.
In summary, it has been shown that 1) with the given
model of the plant, the closed-loop system (27) is asymptot-
ically stable; and 2) with plant dynamics largely unknown,
the tracking error and its up to (n 1)
th
order derivatives of
LADRC are bounded and their upper bounds monotonously
decrease with the controller bandwidth, as shown in (51).
IV. CONCLUDING REMARKS
Existing estimators and their characteristics are rst sum-
marized in this paper, concerning unknown disturbance and
plant dynamics. The main result in this paper is the analysis
of the stability and tracking characteristics of a particular
class of such observers, LESO, and the associated feedback
control system, LADRC. Both design scenarios, with and
without a detailed mathematical model of the plant, are
considered. It is shown that the asymptotic stability is assured
in the former and boundedness of the estimation error and
the closed-loop tracking error in the later. Furthermore, it is
shown that the tracking error monotonously decreases with
the control loop bandwidth.
Acknowledgment
The authors would like to thank Prof. Sally Shao at
Cleveland State University for her insightful and valuable
suggestions.
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