Decoupled nonsingular terminal sliding mode control for affine nonlinear systems

A decoupled nonsingular terminal sliding mode control（DNTSMC） approach is proposed to address the tracking control problem of affine nonlinear systems.A nonsingular terminal sliding mode control（NTSMC） method is presented,in which the nonsingular terminal sliding surface is defined as a special nonsingular terminal function and the convergence time of the system states can be specified.The affine nonlinear system is firstly decoupled into linear subsystems via feedback linearization.Then,a nonsingular terminal sliding surface is defined and the NTSMC method is applied to each subsystem separately to ensure the finite time convergence of the closed-loop system.The verification example is given to demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed approach.The proposed approach exhibits a considerable advantage in terms of faster tracking error convergence and less chattering compared with the conventional sliding mode control（CSMC）.