Development of nonlinear disturbance observer based control and nonlinear PID: A personal note

This paper gives an overview of early development of nonlinear disturbance observer design technique and the disturbance observer based control (DOBC) design. Some critical points raised in the development of the methods have been reviewed and discussed which are still relevant for many researchers or practitioners who are interested in this method. The review is followed by the development of a new type of nonlinear PID controller for a robotic manipulator and its experimental tests. It is shown that, under a number of assumptions, the DOBC consisting of a predictive control method and a nonlinear disturbance observer could reduce to a nonlinear PID with special features. Experimental results show that, compared with the predictive control method, the developed controller significantly improves performance robustness against uncertainty and friction. This paper may trigger further research and interests in the development of DOBC and related methods, and building up more understanding between this group of control methods with comparable ones (particularly control methods with integral action).