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Published in IET Control Theory and Applications
Received on 16th April 2012
Revised on 22nd October 2012
Accepted on 17th November 2012
doi: 10.1049/iet-cta.2012.0284

ISSN 1751-8644

General framework in designing Luenberger-like

non-linear observer
Mohsen Ekramian1, Saeed Hosseinnia2, Farid Sheikholeslam3
1

Department of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran

Department of Electrical Engineering, Najafabad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Najafabad, Iran
3
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan, Iran
E-mail: ekramian@ec.iut.ac.ir
2

Abstract: The problem of designing Luenberger-like observer for non-linear Lipschitz systems is addressed. Based on using the
coordinate transformation, the author classify many practical approaches of observer synthesis into direct and indirect methods. A
generalised Lipschitz condition and the related stability condition are then employed to establish a general framework in
designing the Luenberger-like observer dealing with both methods. Moreover, the proposed framework is interpreted in terms
of some linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) which allows using numerical techniques to obtain a reduced order observer.
Finally, some simulation examples are given to exhibit the effectiveness of the proposed observer synthesis approach.

Introduction

The non-linear state observer synthesis has been an active

eld of research during last decades and despite signicant
progress, many important problems still remain unsolved
[1]. The classical approach to non-linear observer design
consists of nding a transformation that linearises the plant
up to an output injection term and then applying standard
linear observer design techniques [24]. However, the
existence of such a transformation relies on a set of
stringent assumptions and nding the required nonlinear
transformation is non-trivial [5]. The observer synthesis by
circumventing the actual computation of the transformation
is addressed in [6, 7].
Many available practical techniques in observer synthesis
deal with a fairly general class of dynamic equations, in
which the linear and non-linear parts can be separated and
further the outputs are the linear combination of state
variables. These systems are described by
x = A x + B u + F (x, u)
y = Cx

(1)

where A nn, A nm and C pn. Moreover, it is

assumed that the non-linear part (x, u) satises the
Lipschitz condition with respect to the state variables. Note
that, the above dynamic system may be obtained via some
coordinate transformations. Based on utilising any
transformation, we classify the observer design approaches
into direct and indirect methods.
In indirect synthesis methods, the concept of uniform
observability allows to transform the non-linear systems
into the canonical forms as (1) in which the linear and
IET Control Theory Appl., 2013, Vol. 7, Iss. 2, pp. 253260
doi: 10.1049/iet-cta.2012.0284

non-linear parts have some specic structures (e.g.

triangular structure). The high gain observer as the most
important observer in indirect methods was proposed in [8,
9] and [1012] for the single-output and some multi-output
canonical forms, respectively.
The main advantage of indirect methods is that they can
deal with the non-linear function with any large Lipschitz
constant. This characterisation is well established in high
gain observer for the single-output control afne systems
[8]. However, the computation of the inverse of
observability matrix which involves the multiple Lie
derivatives is a difculty of indirect methods. Another
difculty is due to the lack of a general canonical form for
multi-output uniformly observable systems which is still an
open problem in this area [12].
In direct synthesis methods on the other hand, without
using any transformation, the system dynamic is directly
split into linear and non-linear parts as (1). It is assumed
that the linear part is observable and the non-linear part is
locally or globally Lipschitz. The idea of direct methods
was rst suggested in [13] and then further pursued in [14]
with a design procedure based on solving a Riccati
equation. Rajamani [15] obtained an observer stability
condition in terms of the linear part. This condition is used
in [15, 16] to design an observer with static and dynamic
observer gain, respectively.
In direct methods, the difculty of computation of any
coordinate change as in the indirect methods does not exist.
Moreover, there is no difference between single-output and
multi-output cases. The main limitation of direct methods is
that they cannot be applied to those non-linearities with
large Lipschitz constants. This is generally because of
neglecting the structure of system non-linearity [17]. The
observer synthesis for the non-linear functions with some
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zero entries is discussed in [16]. Considering some structural
knowledge of system non-linearity, a generalised Lipschitz
condition has recently been dened in [18] to design a
Luenberger-like observer.
In this paper, based on the generalised Lipschitz condition,
we rst show that the proposed stability condition in [18] is a
necessary and sufcient condition to ensure the error
convergence in direct methods. Moreover, we extend the
results to some indirect methods in which the symmetric
linear transformations are employed to design the non-linear
observer. Taking into account the generalised Lipschitz
condition and the related stability condition, the main
contribution of this paper is to establish a general
framework in designing the Luenberger-like observer
dealing with both direct and indirect methods. Finally,
based on the proposed design framework, some LMIs are
then derived which allow using numerical techniques to
achieve a full order as well as a reduced order non-linear
observer.
This paper is organised as follows. In Section 2, some
preliminary results on system description and observer
synthesis in direct and indirect methods are reviewed. The
stability condition based on generalised Lipschitz condition
is presented in Section 3. Moreover, a general design
framework in dealing with both direct and indirect methods
is introduced. Section 4 is devoted to formulating the
proposed framework in terms of some LMIs which results
in a systematic synthesis procedure of a non-linear observer.
Some simulation examples are presented in Section 5 to
verify the effectiveness of the proposed observer synthesis
approach in dealing with some practical systems. The
concluding remarks are nally given in Section 6.

Preliminary results

In this paper, it is assumed that the non-linear function (x, u)

satises the Lipschitz condition with respect to the state
variables as





F(x, u) F(x, u)
ax x 

(2)

for some Lipschitz constant > 0. Note that, this condition is

practically satised for many non-linearities at least locally.
The observer for system dynamic (1) will be assumed to be
of the Luenberger-like form


x = Ax + Bu + F(x , u) L y Cx

(3)

where L is the observer gain matrix to be designed.

2.1

Direct methods

Note that, any non-linear system of the form x = f (x, u) can

be expressed in the form (1), as long as f (x, u) is
differentiable with respect to its variables. Dening
x = x x , estimation error dynamics are then given by

x = (A + LC)x + F

(4)

= F(x, u) F(x , u). The important question in

where F
observer synthesis is that what conditions the matrix A + LC
should satisfy to ensure the stability of error dynamics (4).
A stability condition specically related to matrix A + LC is
presented in [15] as the following theorem.
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Theorem 1 [15]: For the observable pair (A, C) if an observer

gain L can be chosen such that A + LC is stable and
min smin (A + LC jvI) . a
v[<+

(5)

then the error dynamics (4) are asymptotically stable for every
non-linearity satisfying the Lipschitz condition (2). Moreover,
if (5) is not satised, there exists at least one matrix E Cnn
such that the function (x, u) = Ex satises the Lipschitz
condition while it makes the error dynamics (4) unstable.
Remark 1: Although the stability condition in Theorem 1 is a
necessary and sufcient condition for a given Lipschitz
constant , it is only a sufcient condition to guarantee the
error convergence for a given non-linear function .
2.2

Indirect methods

The non-linear systems which can be transformed into the

canonical forms as (1) by some coordinate transformations
(diffeomorphism) are considered in indirect methods. In the
sequel, we rst consider the single-output case and then
discuss the extension of results to the multi-output systems.
A well-dened observable canonical form (commonly
referred to as the triangular observable form) has the system
description (1) with

0 1
0
..

..
.

,
A = A0 =

0 0 1
0 0 0

w1 (x1 , u)
w (x , x , u)

2 1 2
,
F=
..

.
wn (x1 , . . . , xn , u)



C = C0 = 1 0 0

(6)

In the case of single-output control afne systems, it is well

established that for any uniformly observable system, there
always exists a coordinate transformation that allows the
expression of system dynamics in the above triangular form
[8, 19]. The observer synthesis in indirect methods relies on
utilising the linear diagonal transformation T() with as a
design parameter. After any linear transformation z = Tx, the
error dynamics (4) change in the new coordinate as



+L
 z + C
C
z = A

(7)

 = T A T 1 , L
 = CT 1
 = TL, C
where z = z z and A
1

and C = C(z, u) C(z, u), C(z, u) = T F(T z, u). Note

that, the non-linear function (z, u) satises the Lipschitz
condition with some Lipschitz constant . The underlying
idea in selecting the diagonal transformation is that the
Lipschitz constant does not depend on the design
parameter . For the canonical form (6), the diagonal
transformation is dened as


T = Diag u1 , u2 , . . . , un u 1

(8)

Clearly, the Lipschitz constant of non-linear function (z, u)

does not depend on the design parameter and can be
obtained as = . The observer synthesis for the canonical
form (6) is described below.
IET Control Theory Appl., 2013, Vol. 7, Iss. 2, pp. 253260
doi: 10.1049/iet-cta.2012.0284

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Theorem 2: For any non-linear function with Lipschitz
constant , a diagonal transformation (8) and an observer
 to ensure the error convergence exist.
gain L

3 General framework based on generalised

Lipschitz condition

Proof: By considering the diagonal transformation (8) we

 = uA, C
 = uC and the error dynamics (7) are given
have A
as

Considering some structural knowledge of the non-linear

function in addition to the fact that it satises the
Lipschitz condition, a generalised Lipschitz condition has
recently been dened in [18] as




 z + C
z = u A + LC

Q F
x R x
F

(9)

 such that the eigenvalues of A + LC

 have
One can select L
negative real parts. Consider the Lyapunov function
V = z Pz where P is the positive denite symmetric
solution of





 = I
 P + P A + LC
A + LC

(10)

Differentiating
this function along (9) and using (10) implies

V u + 2bP z2 . Now by selecting > 2||P the
stability of error dynamics (7) and (4) are guaranteed.

1 
The observer gain in (3) can be obtained as L = T L. This
observer is known as a high gain observer since it relies on the
selection of some sufciently large tuning parameter which
in turn implies the large observer gain L. A dual version of the
high gain observer for observable canonical form in [8, 9] is
suggested for the observer canonical form in [20].
For general multi-output uniformly observable systems,
the problem of nding a canonical form is a difcult task
and has not been solved [12]. However, an important
subclass of multi-input multi-output (MIMO) uniformly
observable systems can be characterised in the form of
p subsystems
corresponding
to the number
of outputs



 with
x = x1 xp [ <n and y = y1 yp [ <p .
This system can be described in the form (1) with


A = Diag A1 , . . . , Ap


C = Diag C1 , , Cp

F1 (x, u)

..
F(x, u) =

.
Fp (x, u)

where k() is a diagonal matrix.

IET Control Theory Appl., 2013, Vol. 7, Iss. 2, pp. 253260
doi: 10.1049/iet-cta.2012.0284

where Q and R are two positive denite symmetric

matrices. Note that any non-linear function which
satises
this inequality is a Lipschitz function with

a = smax (R)/smin (Q). On the other hand, any Lipschitz
non-linear function can satisfy condition (12) with Q = I,
R = a 2I. Moreover, for many Lipschitz non-linear functions
we may nd some other Q and R which provide less
conservative results while satisfying the inequality (12).
3.1

Direct methods

The problem of interest here is to study the convergence

property of the origin x = 0 as the equilibrium point of (4)
for all non-linearities satisfying the generalised Lipschitz
condition (12). In the following theorem we extend the
results of Theorem 1 to solve this problem.
Theorem 3: For the observable pair (A, C) if an observer gain
L can be chosen such that A + LC is stable and


min+ smin Q1/2 (A + LC jvI)R1/2 . 1

v[<

(13)

then the error dynamics (4) are asymptotically stable for every
non-linearity satisfying the generalised Lipschitz condition
(12). Moreover, if (13) is not satised, there exists at least
one matrix E Cnn such that the function (x, u) = Ex
satises the generalised Lipschitz condition while it makes
the error dynamics (4) unstable.
Proof: (Sufciency) see [18], (Necessity) First note that there
exists a 0 0 such that Q 1/2R1/2 0I. Since, the singular
values are continuous functions of matrix elements, there
exist some 0 0 and 0 such that

where Ai and Ci have a similar structure as A

0 and C0 and the
size of each blocks is ni 2, i = [1, p] with pi=1 ni = n. The
non-linear function (x, u) in [10] has a block triangular
structure which does not allow the interconnections between
different blocks. An extension for multi-output systems in
the observer canonical form can be found in [21]. The class
considered in [11] allows the ith block to be a function of
(x1, , xi1), the states of previous blocks, and (yi+1, , yp)
of the following blocks.
The class S1 characterised in [12] has a fairly general
form since it includes most of the classes aforementioned.
The high gain observer proposed in [12] is a bit different
from the Luenberger-like one (3) in which the output
injection is employed to obtain the observer gain L.
However, the observer synthesis is based on using the
linear transformation


T(u) = Diag D1 (u), . . . , Dp (u)

(12)

(11)



smin Q1/2 (A + LC jv0 I)R1/2 , g0
where 0 < 1. Based on the denition of singular values, there
exists a matrix F Cnn with ||F||2 < 0 such that Q 1/2(A +
LC j0I )R 1/2 + F is singular. By choosing > 0 such
that 0 + 0 < 1 we have





F + 1Q1/2 R1/2
F + 1Q1/2 R1/2
2
2
g0 + 1s0 1

(14)

Let E = Q 1/2FR 1/2 + . The function (x, u) = Ex satises

the generalised Lipschitz condition as


Q F
= x E Q Ex = x R1/2 F + 1 Q1/2 R1/2
F


Q1/2 QQ1/2 F + 1 Q1/2 R1/2 R1/2 x


= x R1/2 F + 1 Q1/2 R1/2


F + 1 Q1/2 R1/2 R1/2 x x Rx
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where the last inequality is obtained from (14). On the
other hand, the singularity of Q 1/2(A + LC j0I)R 1/2 + F
results in the singularity of Q 1/2(A + LC j0I )R 1/2 +
Q 1/2(E I)R 1/2 which in turn implies the singularity of
(A + LC j0I + E I). In fact, A + LC + E as the state
matrix of closed loop error dynamics x = (A + LC + E)x

has an eigenvalue at 0 = + j0 which is unstable.

Remark 2: Theorem 1 is a special case of Theorem 3 with
Q = I, R = 2I.
3.2

Indirect methods

In this subsection, the generalised Lipschitz condition is

employed for the observer synthesis in indirect methods.
For this purpose, we study the stability of error dynamics
(4) after applying a symmetric linear transformation z = Tx
with T = T.
Theorem 4: Suppose that a symmetric linear transformation
 exist such that the asymptotic
and an observer gain L
convergence of the error dynamics (7) is guaranteed for any
nonlinear function with Lipshcitz constant b. Then for
the error dynamics (4), there always exist the positive
denite matrices Q and R such that the generalised
Lipschitz condition (12) and the stability condition (13) hold.
Proof: According to Theorem 1, for any non-linear function
with Lipschitz constant , the asymptotic stability of
+L
 is
C
error dynamics (7) is guaranteed if and only if A
stable and the following condition is satised (see Remark 1)


Remark 3: According to the proposed framework, the

matrices Q and R in direct and indirect methods in Section
2 are the diagonal matrices. Clearly, by selecting non-zero
values in the off-diagonal elements of Q and R, one can
obtain less conservative results in dealing with observer
synthesis (see simulation examples in Section 5).
Suppose that the matrices Q and R are selected in such a
way that for a given non-linear function the generalised
Lipschitz condition (12) is satised. In this case, for a given
observer gain L the sufciency part of Theorem 3
guarantees the stability of error dynamics (4) as a general
Analysis tool. To obtain a general Synthesis tool, we
need to obtain the observer gain L under which the
assumptions of Theorem 3 hold. For this purpose, a design
procedure is proposed in [18] which is discussed in the
sequel.
Theorem 5: Let the pair (A, C ) be observable. There exists an
observer gain L which stabilises A + LC and satises
condition (13) if and only if there exists an > 0 such that
J dom(Ric) and Y = Ric(J) 0 where


A
J1 =
Q1

R 12 C C
A


(15)

Moreover, when this condition holds, one such observer gain

is given by
L = 12 Y1 C

(16)

+L
 jvI . b
C
min smin A

v[<+

Equivalently


min+ smin T (A + LC jvI)b1 T 1 . 1

v[<

By dening the positive denite symmetric matrices Q = T 2

and R = 2T 2, the stability condition (13) for the
error dynamics (4) is obtained. Moreover, for the proposed
Q and R, the non-linear function satises the
= C
2
T 2F
generalised Lipschitz condition as F
2
2
2 2
b z = x b T x .

Theorem 4 is particularly applicable in the indirect methods

in which the observer gain is obtained by applying some
symmetric linear transformations. The important examples
are the canonical forms described in the last section in
which the linear diagonal coordinate changes (8), (11) are
applied to design an observer gain.
3.3

The sufciency parts of Theorems 3 and 5 can be utilised to

derive a general Synthesis tool obtaining the observer gain L
as follows. Given two positive denite matrices Q and R, if
the design parameter > 0 is selected such that J dom
(Ric) and Y = Ric(J) 0 then the error dynamics (4) are
asymptotically stabilised by means of the observer gain L in
(16). Clearly, this procedure can be employed in both direct
and indirect methods. Some examples for direct methods
can be found in [18].
In indirect methods, we pursue the procedure for the
single-output canonical form (6) to obtain an observer gain
L. According to Theorem 2, for any Lipschitz constant
= there always exists a sufciently large such that in
 can be found to
the new coordinate (7) an observer gain L
stabilise the error dynamics. Equivalently, by considering
the proposed synthesis tool, it can be easily shown that by
selecting Q = T 2 and R = 2T 2 (as proposed by Theorem 4)
there always exists a sufciently large such that J dom
(Ric) and Y = Ric(J) 0 where J is dened as


A
J1 =
T 2

General framework in analysis and synthesis

The results of above subsections show that many existing

approaches for designing the Luenberger-like observer can
be viewed as the special cases of a general design
framework. This framework is established based on the
appropriate selection of the triple (Q, R, L) under which the
generalised Lipschitz condition (12) and the related stability
condition (13) hold (e.g. Q = I, R = 2I in direct methods
and Q = T 2, R = 2T 2 in indirect methods).
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a2 T 2 12 C C
A


(17)

Non-linear observer synthesis

The proposed synthesis tool in the last section requires the

selection of positive denite matrices Q and R, before
proceeding with the search for an observer gain.
Consequently, the selection of these matrices does not
involve in satisfying the assumptions of Theorem 5. This is
IET Control Theory Appl., 2013, Vol. 7, Iss. 2, pp. 253260
doi: 10.1049/iet-cta.2012.0284

www.ietdl.org
the important limitation of this approach which reduces the
exibility of design procedure in many practical applications.
To overcome this limitation, it is necessary to derive a
method for selecting the triple (Q, R, L) under which the
generalised Lipschitz condition (12) and the stability
condition (13) simultaneously hold. For this purpose, in the
following we formulate these conditions in terms of linear
matrix inequalities which allows using some numerical
techniques to obtain the triple (Q, R, L).
Assume that for a given non-linear function , a linear map
M(Q, R) exists such that if the inequality M(Q, R) 0 holds
then the generalised Lipschitz condition is satised for
some positive denite Q and R. In the following, the
Jacobian matrix of the non-linear function is employed to
obtain such a linear map M(Q, R). First note that, if a scalar
function g(x): with bounded derivative is dened
over the local region |x| < , then a Lipschitz constant for
g(x) can be obtained as = sup|x|<|dg/dx| (the proof
involves contradiction with the mean value theorem). This
result can be extended to the vector function ji(x, u):
nm (as the ith component of ) over a local region

D = (x, u):|xj | , dj ,

j = 1:n, |uk | , duk ,


k = 1:m

as

  
w  = w (x, u) w (x, u)
i

n


 
 
ij x j 
g

 Q F
 is then given by
The symmetric matrix F(Q) = F

221 + 2q23 g
21 g
31 + q33 g
231
q22 g
F(Q) =
0
23 g
21 + q23 g
23 g
31
q22 g

0
0
223
0 q22 g

By considering q23 0 and the inequality 2ab a 2 + b 2 we

have
  
 2
 2
23 g
21 x 1 x 3  0.5 q22 g
221 x 1  +0.5 q22 g
223 x 3 
q22 g
  
 2
 2
23 g
31 x 1  x 3  0.5 q23 g
223 x 1  +0.5 q23 g
231 x 3 
q23 g
and the diagonal matrix Fd(Q) in (19) can be dened as

221 + 2q23 g
21 g
31 + q33 g
231
Fd (Q) = Diag 1.5 q22 g

223 ,0, 1.5 q22 g
223 + 0.5 q23 g
231
+ 0.5 q23 g
Finally, it can be easily shown that satisfying the inequality
M(Q, R) 0 with


M (Q, R) = Diag Fd (Q) R, q23

(20)

x j = xj x j

j=1

results in the satisfaction of generalised Lipschitz condition

for some Q and R.

ij = sup(x,u)[D |gij |. This implies

where ij = ji/xj and g
n 
n
   
  
ik g
 jl x k x l 
w i w j w i w j 
g

Theorem 6: Suppose that for a given > 0, the scalers > 0,

and positive denite matrices P, Q and R exist such that
(18)

k=1 l=1

 with replacing ij by g
ij in and
Let us dene F
 Q F.

F(Q) = F
By assuming qij 0, i j for any entry
in the ith row and jth column of
Q which appears in F(Q)
QF
kxl F(Q) kxl where
and utilising (18), we have F

kxl = [ |x1 | |x2 | |xn | ] . Using the inequality 2ab a 2

+ b 2, there always exists a diagonal matrix Fd(Q) such that
kxl F(Q)kxl kxl F (Q)kxl = x F (Q)x
Q F
F
d
d

(19)

Finally the linear map M(Q, R) can be dened based on the

inequality Fd(Q) R 0 and the assumptions qij 0, i j.
Example 1: Consider a non-linear differentiable function (x)
as

A P + PA 2j C C + R + mI
P
M (Q, R) , 0,


P
,0
Q

lP mI , 0

Choosing L = P 1C, the error dynamics (4) are

exponentially stable with convergence rate .
Proof: The selection of linear map M(Q, R) is such that the
generalised Lipschitz condition holds as long as the second
LMI is satised. Using Schurs complement lemma, the
rst LMI is equivalent to Q > 0 and
A P + PA 2 j C C + P Q1 P + R , mI

(21)

0
F(x) = a2 x3 sin x1 a3 sin 2x1
d2 cos x1

Now consider a Lyapunov function candidate as

V (t) = x P x for which the last LMI implies
0 , V (t) , (m/l)x2 . Differentiating this function along
(4) yields

where a2, a3 and d2 are some constant parameters. Note that,

over a local region {D = (x, u):|x3| < 3} we have

= x [(A + LC) P
V = 2 x P (A + LC) x + 2 x P F

0
 = g
21
F
31
g

0
0
0

0
23
g
0

 
 
21 = a 2 d3 + 2a3  
g
31 = d2 
23 = a2 , g
g

IET Control Theory Appl., 2013, Vol. 7, Iss. 2, pp. 253260

doi: 10.1049/iet-cta.2012.0284

+ P(A + LC)]x + 2 x P Q1/2 Q1/2 F

x [(A + LC) P + P(A + LC)

Q F

+ P Q1 P] x + F
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www.ietdl.org
where

Using the generalised Lipschitz condition we have



A

A =  11
A21

V x [(A + LC) P + P(A + LC) + P Q1 P + R]x

 21
A

By substituting L = P 1C we obtain


A12
A11 A12 K
=
 21
A
A22 + KA12
  

1
A21 A22 K+
B1
B

=
, B=  =
K A11 A12 K
B2 + KB1
B2
 12
A
 22
A

V x [A P + PA 2 j C C + P Q1 P + R]x
which along with (21) yields V (t) , mx 2 and hence, the
observer stability is obtained. Moreover, V (t) , m V (t)/
(m/l) = lV (t) which results in exponential stability with
convergence rate .

Remark 4 (Region of Stability): Assume that the non-linear

function (x, u) satises the Lipschitz condition (2) over
the local region D with |xj| < j, j = 1, , n. Consequently,
the operation of the non-linear observer is guaranteed
when |xj | , dj . As discussed in [22], For the Lyapunov
function V (t) = x P x with V (t) , 0 (as in Theorem 6) we
have smax (P)x 2 V (t) V (0) smax (P)x0 2 . Now by
considering |xj | |xj | + x, in order to ensure |xj | , dj ,
the guaranteed stability region of the non-linear observer is
 



  
xj  , dj = dj k
x 0
,

k = smax (P)/smin (P)

(22)

According to the above worst case analysis, the stability

region is decreased when the initial condition error x 0 is
increased. Also, the non-linear observer is globally stable if
j .
In the sequel, we extend the results of Theorem 6 to design a
reduced order observer. To simplify our discussion, we
assume (without loss of generality) that C = [Ip 0p,np].
Based on Smith orthogonal procedure, it is established that
for any system dynamics (1) with the full rank C, there
always exist some state and output transformations which
results in this assumption [23]. The matrices in inequality
(21) can be decomposed into block matrices as

A=

A11

A12

Q1



 21 y + A
 22 z2 + B
 2 u + [K I]F y, z2 Ky, u
z2 = A


y
x =
(25)
z2 Ky
Proof: Dening z2 = z2 z2 , estimation error dynamics are
given by
 22 z2 + [K
z2 = A

R0
R2

(23)
Using a coordinate transformation as z = Tx with


Ip
K

0
Inp


x=

x1
x2 + Kx1


=

z1
z2

(26)

Consider a Lyapunov function candidate as V (t) = z2 P2 z2

for which the last LMI of Theorem 6 implies


2
0 , V (t) , (m/l)
z2
. Differentiating this function along
(26) yields



 22 P2 + P2 A
 22 z2 + 2 z2 P2 [K I]Q1/2 Q1/2 F
V = z2 A


 22 P2 + P2 A
 22 z2 + z2 P2 [K I]
z2 A
 
1 K
Q F

P2 z2 + F
Q
I

Considering





A22 + K A12 P2 + P2 A22 + K A12


+ P2 S2 + K S0 + S0 K + K S1 K P2 + R2 , mInp

z=

I]F

Q F
z R z =
Note that x = z = [0 z2 ] implies F

z2 R2 z2 which yields
 


 22 P2 + P2 A
 22 + P2 [K I]Q1 K P2 + R2 z2
V z2 A
I

By dening K = P21 P0 , the block in the intersection of the

second row and the second column of the inequality (21) is


Theorem 7: Suppose that the assumptions of Theorem 6 are

satised where C = [I 0]. Then the system dynamics (1)
admit the following reduced order observer whose
dimension is n p. Moreover the error dynamics are
exponentially stable with convergence rate .

,
A22

S
= S = 1
S0

A21


P1 P0
P=
P0 P2


S0
R1
, R=
S2
R0

Clearly, z2 satises the dynamic equations



 21 y + A
 22 z2 + B
 2 u + [K I]F y, z2 Ky, u
z2 = A

[K

I]S

K
I

= S2 + KS0 + S0 K + K S1 K

and taking into account inequality (23), we have

V (t) , mz2 2 , hence, the observer stability is obtained.
Moreover, V (t) , mV (t)/(m/l) = lV (t) which results
in exponential stability with convergence rate .

Simulation

the dynamic (1) take the form



 + Bu
 + TF T 1 z, u ,
z = Az

y = z1 = x1

258
& The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2013

(24)

Example 2: Consider a one-link manipulator with revolute

joints actuator in [14]. The system dynamics are non-linear
IET Control Theory Appl., 2013, Vol. 7, Iss. 2, pp. 253260
doi: 10.1049/iet-cta.2012.0284

www.ietdl.org
and can be described in the form (1) with the following
matrices

48.6 1.25

A=
0
0

19.5

1
0

C =
0
0

0
1

,
0

,
1

48.6
0

21.6

B=

19.5 0

F=

15.86m sin x3

Note that the Lipschitz constant = 15.86m depends on the

value of pointer mass (with the nominal value = 3.33).
For = 3.33, in [18], it was shown that the stability
condition (5) fails to give an stable observer. Also the
synthesis approach based on Theorem 5 was employed to
obtain the observer without using any state transformations
as in [14]. In the following, we pursue the synthesis
approaches in the last section. It can be easily shown that
the inequality (19) is satised by Fd(Q) = F(Q) = Diag{0, 0,
2q44, 0} and the linear map can be selected as M(Q, R) =
Fd(Q) R. To illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed
design algorithm, consider non-linearity with = 30. For
= 0.01, the set of LMIs of Theorem 6 is feasible and we obtain

29.90 2.891 31.1 4.636

2.891 12.14 14.1 0.638

P=

31.1 14.1 45.74 5.17

4.636 0.638 5.17 1.746

19.48 5.84 11.2 0.147

5.84 4.220 0.918 .047

Q=

11.2 0.918 10.50 .085

.047

0.147

.085

R Diag{0, 0, 451.03, 0},

m = 0.7341

and the observer gains, without using any state trans

formations as in [14], are obtained as

L =


K=

94.67
78.80

78.90
103.4

0.572

0.402

.959

0.826

85.89
86.75

following matrices

25.7
9.920

Fig. 1 shows the trajectory tracking of the reduced order

observer for x3 and x4. The system is excited by u = sin(2t)
and the initial conditions are set as x0 = [ 1 1 2 2];
x 0 = [1 1 0 0 ] .
Example 3: Consider the three-phase current motor model
from [24] which can be described in the form (1) with the
IET Control Theory Appl., 2013, Vol. 7, Iss. 2, pp. 253260
doi: 10.1049/iet-cta.2012.0284

A = 0 a1
0 , B u = u1
u2
0
0
d1

0
1

C = 0 , F = a2 x3 sin x1 a3 sin 2x1

d2 cos x1

0.501

j = 264.68,

Fig. 1 Real values (solid) and estimated values (broken) of x3 and

x4

where x = [x1 x2 x3 ] , and x1, x2 and x3 denote the motors

rotor angle, speed deviation and eld ux linkage,
respectively. The inputs are the nominal mechanical power
u1 = 39.19 and the eld voltage u2 = 1.933. The model
parameters are set as a1 = 0.2703, a2 = 12.01, a3 = 24.02,
d1 = 0.3222, d2 = 1.9. Note that the Lipschitz constant for
system non-linearity is greater than a23 where 3 = 15 is
the upper bound on the value of eld ux linkage, that is,
|x3| < 3. By selecting Q = I, R = 2I (direct methods), it can
be shown that for > 0.3222 the matrix J (15) has some
eigenvalues on the imaginary axis regardless of . Hence, a
restriction is imposed on designing an observer by the
sufcient condition (5).
For designing a high gain observer (indirect methods), the
following coordinate transformation proposed by [25] can be
employed to obtain the triangular form (6)
x1 = x1 ,

x2 = x2 ,

x3 =

x3 + a1x2 + a3 sin 2x1

a2 sin x1

(27)

which is valid at any point except x1 k. After applying this

transformation, the design procedure related to the matrix J
(17) can be followed to obtain the observer gain for any
Lipschitz constant . However for the initial condition
x0 = [5 20 5] , the system trajectory passes through a
singular point of the non-linear transformation (27).
In the following, we pursue the synthesis approaches in the
last section without using any coordinate change. Note that, in
Example 1, the linear map (20) is given for the nonlinear
function to satisfy the generalised Lipschitz condition.
259

& The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2013

www.ietdl.org
These conditions are then employed to derive a general
framework in designing the Luenberger-like observer in
both direct and indirect methods. Moreover, the proposed
design framework is interpreted in terms of some LMIs
which results in a systematic procedure to design a full
order as well as a reduced order non-linear observer. The
simulation examples are nally given to exhibit the
effectiveness of the proposed synthesis approach in dealing
with some practical systems.

Fig. 2 Real values (solid) and estimated values (broken) of x2 and

x3

By selecting = 0.01, the set of LMIs of Theorem 6 is

feasible and we obtain

5.969 .422 0.000

P = .422 0.090 0.003

0.000

0.002

5.999

0.280

.040

0.001

Q = .040
0.001

0.010

0.010

0.010

23.37

R Diag{901.65, 0, 2.2560},

m = 0.0600,
k = 10

j = 537.69,

and the observer gains are obtained as



L = 134.62 630.32 0.2831


K = 4.6820 0.0021
To illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed design
algorithm, Fig. 2 shows the trajectory tracking of the
reduced order observer for x2 and x3 where the initial
conditions are set as x0 = [5 20 5] , x 0 = [5 0 0] .
Note that, since |x3 | d3 = 15, the operation of the
non-linear observer is guaranteed (see Remark 4). However
according to the worst case analysis in (22) the guaranteed
stability region for |x3 | d3 = 12 can be obtained when
x0  0.3.

Conclusion

Many practical approaches in non-linear observer synthesis

are classied into direct and indirect methods. Based on the
generalised Lischitz condition, a necessary and sufcient
condition to guarantee the error convergence is presented.

260
& The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2013

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IET Control Theory Appl., 2013, Vol. 7, Iss. 2, pp. 253260

doi: 10.1049/iet-cta.2012.0284