Asian Journal of Control, Vol. 18, No. 4, pp.

14671477, July 2016

Published online 11 January 2016 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/asjc.1230

FULL-ORDER AND REDUCED-ORDER OBSERVER DESIGN FOR A

CLASS OF FRACTIONAL-ORDER NONLINEAR SYSTEMS
Yong-Hong Lan, Liang-Liang Wang, Lei Ding, and Yong Zhou

ABSTRACT
The paper is concerned with problem of the full-order and reduced-order observer design for a class of
fractional-order one-sided Lipschitz nonlinear systems. By introducing a continuous frequency distributed equivalent
model and using indirect Lyapunov approach, the sufficient condition for asymptotic stability of the full-order observer
error dynamic system is presented. Furthermore, the proposed design method was extended to reduced-order observer
design for fractional-order nonlinear systems. All the stability conditions are obtained in terms of LMI, which are less
conservative than some existing ones. Finally, a numerical example demonstrates the validity of this approach.
Key Words: Fractional-order nonlinear system, observer design, indirect Lyapunov approach, linear matrix inequality
(LMI).

I. INTRODUCTION But, how to construct the simple direct Lyapunov func-

During the past decades, the study of fractional dif-
ferential calculus [1,2] has attracted increasing interest.
Various subtle results on fractional-order systems have
been presented [36]. It was found that many systems
in interdisciplinary fields could be elegantly described
with the help of fractional-order systems [1,2]. Further-
more, fractional order controllers (such as [5,6]) have so
far been implemented to enhance the robustness and the
performance of the closed loop control systems.
It is notable that the stabilization problem of
fractional-order nonlinear systems [710] is much more
difficult than that of the linear systems [1113]. Using a
generalization of Gronwall-Bellman lemma, the stability
problem of fractional-order nonlinear affine differential
equations has been investigated in [7,8]. Based on frac-
tional sliding mode control, a robust stabilization and
synchronization method was proposed in [9]. As a fun-
damental tool to analyze the stability of nonlinear sys-
tems, the Lyapunov method has been introduced in [14].
Manuscript received October 16, 2014; revised May 17, 2015; accepted August
9, 2015.
Yong-Hong Lan (corresponding author, e-mail: yhlan@xtu.edu.cn) and Liang-
Liang Wang are with the Institute of Control Engineering, Xiangtan University,
Xiangtan, Hunan 411105, China.
Lei Ding is with the School of Physics Science and Information Engineering,
Jishou University, Jishou, Hunan, 416000, China.
Yong Zhou is with the School of Mathematics and Computational Science,
Xiangtan University, Xiangtan, Hunan 411105, China.
This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China
(61573298, 61363073), Hunan Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China
(14JJ2073), Scientific Research Fund of Hunan Provincial Education Depart-
ment (15B238) and Construct Program of the Control Science and Engineering
Discipline in Xiangtan University.
tions remains an open problem [15]. Using frequency
distributed fractional integrator equivalent model, an
indirect Lyapunov method to fractional nonlinear dif-
ferential equations has been addressed in recent papers
[16,17]. The main interest of this Lyapunov function is
that it leads to a parametric stability condition, which
would not be possible with a direct application of the
usual Lyapunov methodology [16].
On the other hand, as is well known, in real-world
systems, some of the system states are not measur-
able. In this case, the estimation of the system states or
observers are often needed [13,1720]. Recently, there has
been much research on the observer design for nonlin-
ear systems, both in fractional-order cases [17,21] and
integral-order cases [1820]. In particular, the observer
design for one-sided Lipschitz nonlinear integral-order
systems has received increasing attention in very recent
years [20,2225]. The stability conditions of the observer
error dynamics for one-sided Lipschitz systems was first
proposed in [22], while the reduced-order observers for
such systems were given in [23]. For the sake of sim-
ple calculation, [20,24,25] provided a solution via solving
matrix inequalities to address the observer design. By
introducing a continuous frequency distributed equiva-
lent model, the full-order observer design problem for
fractional-order Lipschitz nonlinear systems was dis-
cussed in [26].
In addition, in the ideal case, the controller/observer
is always assumed to be implemented exactly. However, in
practice, the variations are usually inevitable, which may
deteriorate the performance of the control systems and

2016 Chinese Automatic Control Society and John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd
1468 Asian Journal of Control, Vol. 18, No. 4, pp. 14671477, July 2016

even lead to instability. An observer for which the estima- where m Z+ , Dm is the classical m-order derivative.
tion error diverges by a small perturbation in the observer
gain is referred to as fragile [27]. The authors in [28] have Definition 3 [16]. Let h(t) be the impulse response of a
shown that even vanishingly small perturbations in the linear system. The diffusive representation (or frequency
control coefficients may destabilize the closed-loop sys- weighting function) of h(t) is called () with following
tem. After that, considerable interest has been devoted to relation:
this subject such as [17,29].
In this paper, inspired by the above work, we aim h(t) = ()et d.
0
at designing non-fragile full-order and reduced-order
observers for fractional-order one-sided Lipschitz non-
Lemma 1 [16]. The fractional-order nonlinear differen-
linear systems. By using an indirect Lyapunov approach,
tial equations
the LMI-based sufficient conditions for asymptotic sta-
bility of the observer error dynamic systems are pre- a
t0 Dt x(t) = f (x(t))
sented, and can be easily obtained using the Matlab LMI
toolbox [30]. Also, the obtained stability conditions are due to the continuous frequency distributed model of the
less conservative than some existing ones in the recent fractional integrator, can be expressed as:
literature [17,20]. { z(,t)
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. In t
) = z(, t) + f (x(t)),

Section II, some preliminaries and problem formulations x(t) = 0 ()z(, t)d,
are presented. The full-order observer design is given in
where () is introduced as
Section III. Section IV presents the asymptotical stability
condition for the reduced-order observer error dynamic sin(a) a
system. The efficiency of the approach is shown through () = .

an illustrative example in Section V. Finally, some con-
clusions are drawn in Section VI. Lemma 2 [31]. Given real matrices H and E of appro-
Throughout this paper, Rn denotes an priate dimensions,
n-dimensional Euclidean space, Rnm is the set of all
n m real matrices, I means an identity matrix of appro- HF(t)E + E T F T (t)H T < 0
priate order, X > 0 (< 0) indicates that the matrix X is for all F(t) satisfying F T (t)F(t) I if and only if there
T
positive[ (negative)
] definite,
[ X
] denotes the transpose of exists an > 0 such that
X Y X Y
X and = .
Z YT Z HH T + 1 E T E < 0.

II. PRELIMINARIES AND PROBLEM Lemma 3 Schur complement [30]. For a real matrix =
T , the following assertions are equivalent:
FORMULATION
[ ]
11 12
In this section, some basic definitions and properties i. = > 0.
22
(for more details see [1,2]) are introduced, which will be
used in the following sections. ii. 11 > 0, and 22 T12 1 > 0.
11 12
iii. 22 > 0, and 11 12 1 T > 0.
22 12
Definition 1 [1]. The definition of fractional integral is
described by In this paper, we consider the fractional-order non-
linear system described by the following form:
t
1
(t )1 f ()d, a > 0, { a
t0 t f (t)
a
= D x(t) = Ax(t) + (x(t), u(t)),
(a) t0 (1)
y(t) = Cx(t),
where () is the well-known Gamma function which is

defined by (z) = 0 ez tz1 dt. where Da denotes the Riemann-Liouville derivative, 0 <
a < 1 is the fractional commensurate order, x(t) Rn is
Definition 2 [1]. The Riemann-Liouville derivative is the state of the plant, u(t) Rm and y(t) Rp are the
defined by control input and output, respectively. A and C are sys-
tems matrices of appropriate dimensions. The nonlinear
t f (t)
RL a
t0
= m
t
am
t
f (t), a [m 1, m), function (x, u) Rn Rn is said to be locally Lipschitz
0

2016 Chinese Automatic Control Society and John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd
 Y-H Lan et al.: Observer Design for Fractional-Order Nonlinear Systems 1469

in a region D including the origin with respect to x, uni- observer holds the form of (5). Then the observer error
formly in u, if for all x1 , x2 D, there exists a constant dynamic system is asymptotically stable if there exist a
> 0 satisfying: symmetrical matrix P > 0, matrix Z of appropriate
dimensions together with real scalars 1 > 0, 2 > 0
(x1 , u ) (x2 , u ) x1 x2 , (2) such that
while (x, u) is said to be one-sided Lipschitz [24] if there 11 P P
exists a constant R such that for all x1 , x2 D, 1 I 0 < 0, (7)

2 I
(x1 , u ) (x2 , u ), x1 x2 x1 x2 2 . (3)
where 11 = PA + AT P ZC C T ZT + 1 I + 2 r2 C T C.
(x, u) is said to be quadratic inner-boundedness [24] in
Moreover, the observer gain can be chosen as L = P1 Z.
the region D if there exist two constants , R such
that for all x1 , x2 D
Proof. It follows from Lemma 1 that the observer error
((x1 , u) (x2 , u)) ((x1 , u) (x2 , u))
T dynamic system (6) can be written as
x1 x2 2 { Z(,t)
(4)
) = Z(, t) + Acl e(t) + ,
t (8)
+ x1 x2 , (x1 , u) (x2 , u).
e(t) = 0 ()Z(, t)d,
The purpose in this paper is to study the
where Acl = A LC.
design problem of the fractional-order observer for Consider two Lyapunov functions: v(, t) is the
fractional-order nonlinear system (1). monochromatic Lyapunov function corresponding to
the elementary frequency and V (t) is the Lyapunov
III. FULL-ORDER OBSERVER DESIGN function summing all the monochromatic v(, t) with
the weighting function (). Thus, we can define our
In this section, we investigate the design prob- monochromatic Lyapunov function as
lem of full-order observer for fractional-order nonlinear
system (1). In the following, we consider a full-order V (t) = ()v(, t)d
0
Luenberger-type non-fragile observer of the following (9)
form as in [17]: = ()ZT (, t)PZ(, t)d.
0
{
= Ax(t)
Da x(t) + (x(t),

u(t)) + L(y(t) y (t)),
The time derivative of V (t) taken along the solution
y (t) = C x(t),

trajectories of (8) is
(5)
{
where L = L + L(t) and L(t) is additive perturbation V (t) = () ZT (, t) + eT (t)ATcl
0
on the gain with known bound L(t) r. L is the gain }
+ T PZ(, t)d
matrix to be designed.
denote the error signal, then
Let e(t) = x(t) x(t) + ()ZT (, t)P {Z(, t)
the observer error dynamic system can be written as 0 (10)
}
d
+Acl e(t) +

Da e(t) = (A LC)e(t)
+ , (6)

= (x(t), u(t)) (x(t), = 2 ()ZT (, t)PZ(, t)d

where u(t)). 0
Now, the design problem can be transformed to the
+ 2eT (t)PAcl e(t) + 2eT (t)P.
robust stabilization problem of fractional-order nonlin-
ear uncertain system (6). Using Lemma 2 and the condition (2), inequality
By using indirect Lyapunov approach, we first pro-
pose the sufficient condition for asymptotic stability of <0
2eT (t)P (11)
the observer error dynamic system (6), which is less con-
is equivalent to
servative than that in recent literature [17].
1
1
eT (t)P2 e(t) + 1 eT (t)e(t) < 0, (12)
Theorem 1. For fractional-order nonlinear system (1),
assume that the condition (2) is true, the full-order where 1 > 0.

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1470 Asian Journal of Control, Vol. 18, No. 4, pp. 14671477, July 2016

Thus, V (t) < 0, which implies that the dynamic where

system (8) is robustly stable if 11 = PA + AT P ZC C T ZT
ATcl P + PAcl + 1
1
P2 + 1 I < 0. (13) + (1 + 2 )I + 3 r2 C T C.

Again using Lemma 2 and the assumption L(t) r, Moreover, the observer gain matrix, L is given by L =
we know that P1 Z.

PL(t)C + C T LT (t)P < 0 (14) Proof. It follows from the proof of Theorem 1 that
is equivalent to
V (t) = 2 ()ZT (, t)PZ(, t)d
0
2 r C C +
2 T
1 P2 < 0, (15)
2

+ 2eT (t)PAcl e(t) + 2eT (t)P
where 2 > 0.
(19)
Therefore, inequality (13) is equivalent to = 2 ()ZT (, t)PZ(, t)d
0
[ ]
AT P + PA + 1 P2 PLC C T LT P T 1 P
(16) +X X,
+ 1 I + 2 r2 C T C + 1 P2 < 0. 0
1 2
where X = [e(t) ] T , 1 = AT P + PAcl .
Now, defining PL = Z and using the Schur complement, cl
one obtains inequality (7). This completes the proof. On the other hand, from condition (3), we get
eT (t)e(t)eT (t) 0, which implies that for any positive
Remark 1. In particular, simply setting P = I, Z = L scalar 1 ,
and Q = AZC, the stability condition (7) is equivalent [ ]T [ ][ ]
e(t) I 12 I e(t)
to (See [17]) 1 0. (20)
0
M I I
21 I 0 < 0, (17) Similarly, using condition (4), it follows that eT (t)e(t) +
eT (t) T 0. Therefore, for any positive scalar 2 ,
22 I
we have
T r2 [ ]T [ ][ ]
where M = Q+Q + 21 I + 22 C T C. e(t) I 2 I e(t)
2
Note that stability condition (45) is the same as 2 0. (21)
I
that of Theorem 1 in [17]. So, the result of [17] can be
regard as a special case of Theorem 1. In fact, not fixing Then, adding the terms on the left-hand sides of (20) and
P may result in a more suitable choice of P, thus reduc- (21)to the right-hand side of (19), it yields
ing the conservativeness (see Case 1 of the Example in
Section V). V (t) 2 ()ZT (, t)PZ(, t)d
0
[ ] (22)
The following Theorem presents a design method 2 3
+ XT X,
of full-order observer for fractional-order one-side 2 I
Lipschitz and quadratically inner-bounded nonlinear
where
system (1).
2 = ATcl P + PAcl + (1 + 2 )I,
Theorem 2. For fractional-order nonlinear system (1), 1
assume that the conditions (3) and (4) hold true, the 3 = P + 2 I.
2
full-order fractional-order non-fragile observer holds the
form of (5). Then the observer error dynamic system is Therefore, V (t) < 0, which implies that the error dynamic
asymptotically stable if there exist a symmetrical matrix system is robustly stable if
P > 0, matrix Z of appropriate dimensions together with [ ]
2 P + 22 1 I
real scalars 1 > 0, 2 > 0 and 3 > 0 such that < 0. (23)
2 I

11 P + 22 1 I P Note that
2 I 0 < 0. (18)
PL(t)C + C T LT (t)P < 0 (24)
3 I

2016 Chinese Automatic Control Society and John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd
 Y-H Lan et al.: Observer Design for Fractional-Order Nonlinear Systems 1471

is equivalent to 11 F P + 22 1 Inp
I 0 < 0, (29)
3 r2 C T C + 1 PP < 0, (25) 2 p

3 2 Inp

where 3 > 0. where

Defining Z = PL and using the Schur complement
together with (22)-(25), the condition (23) is equivalent 11 = PA22 + AT22 P + FA12
to (18). This completes the proof.
+ AT12 F T + (1 + 2 )I.
1 T
Remark 2. If a = 1, L(t) = 0 and L = 2
P C , then
the stability condition (23) is altered to: Moreover, the observer gain matrix, L is given by L =
P1 F.
[ ]
N P + 22 1 I
< 0, (26) Proof. Since y = x1 , we have
2 I

where N = PA + AT P + (1 + 2 )I C T C, which is Da x2 = [L Inp ]Da x LDa x1

[ ][ ]
the same as the integral order case [20]. In other words, A11 A12 x1
the derived result in this section is still true for a = 1. = [L Inp ]
A21 A22 x2
([ ] )
x1
+ [L Inp ] , u LDa x1 (30)
IV. REDUCED-ORDER OBSERVER DESIGN x2
= (A22 + LA12 )x2 + (LA11 + A21 )y
A reduced-order observer which estimates only ([ ] )
y
partial states has a lower dimension than that of the + [L Inp ] , u LDa y.
x2
full-order observer. In this section, a reduced-order
observer for fractional-order one-sided Lipschitz nonlin-
ear system is presented. Subtracting (28) from (30), then the error e2 = x2 (t)
We first decompose A and x(t) into block matrices x 2 (t) is then governed by
as follows:
[ ] [ ] Da e2 = (A22 + LA12 )e2 + [L Inp ], (31)
A11 A12 x1
A= , x= , (27)
A21 A22 x2 where
([ ] ) ([ ] )
where A11 Rpp , A22 R(np)(np) , x1 Rp . y y
= ,u ,u
Without lose of generality, we let C = [Ip 0]. That x2 x 2
is, y = Cx(t) = x1 . We propose a reduced-order observer [ ] (32)
1
as follows: = ,
2
Da x 2 (t) = (A22 + LA12 )x 2
1 Rp , 2 Rnp .
+ (LA11 + A21 )y LDa y
([ ] ) (28) It follows from Lemma 1 that the observer error
y dynamic system (51) can be written as
+ [L Inp ] ,u ,
x 2
{ Z(,t)
)= 2 (t) + [L Inp ],
Z(, t) + Ae
where x 2 (t) Rnp , L R(np)p is the gain matrix to be t
e2 = 0 ()Z(, t)d,
designed.
(33)
Theorem 3. For fractional-order nonlinear system (1),
assume that C = [Ip 0] and the conditions (3) and (4) = A22 + LA12 .
where A
hold true. Then, (28) is a reduced-order observer for sys- Consider the Lyapunov function candidate
tem (1) if there exist symmetrical positive matrix P
R(np)(np) , matrix F of appropriate dimensions together

with two real positive scalars 1 , 2 such that V (t) = ()ZT (, t)PZ(, t)d. (34)
0

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The time derivative of V (t) taken along the solution Now, adding the left terms of (37) and (40) to the
trajectories of (33) is right-hand side of (35) yields
T

e2 e2
V (t) = 2 ()Z (, t)PZ(, t)d
T
V (t) 1 1 ,
0 (41)

+ +A
eT2 (PA T P)e2 2 2
+ 2eT2 P[L Inp ] where

= 2 ()Z (, t)PZ(, t)d
T 11 PL P + 22 1 I
0 = 2 Ip 0 ,
T P)e2
+ T
e2 (PA
+A 2 Inp
[ ] (35)
T 1 11 = PA22 + AT22 P + PLA12
+ 2e2 [PL P]
2 + AT12 LT P + (1 + 2 )I.

= 2 ()ZT (, t)PZ(, t)d Setting PL = F, the condition (29) is equivalent to < 0.
0
T
Thus, according to the standard Lyapunov stability the-
e2 e2 ory, the error dynamics (51) is asymptotically stable. This
+ 1 1 , completes the proof.

2 2
Remark 3. It should be pointed out that the derived result
+A
PA T P PL P in Theorem 3 is still true for integral order (a = 1) case.
where = 0 0 . Note that in this case, the authors in [20] proposed a
reduced-order observer as follows:
0
Using the one-sided Lipschitz condition (3), we have
Da z 2 (t) = (A22 + KA12 )z2

([ ]) [ 0 ]2
+[K(A11 A([12 K) + A21 ] A)
22 K]y
0 y
, , (36) +[K Inp ] ,u ,
e2 e2 z 2 Ky

x (t) = z (t) Ky.
2 2
which implies that T2 e2 eT2 e2 . Therefore, for any
positive scalar 1 , we get The stability condition for observer error dynamic system
is given as
T
e2 I 0 2I e2 AT P + PA + (1 + 2 )I
1 1 0 0 1 0. (37) 1 2 (42)
1
2 0 2 + (P + 2 I) C T C < 0.
2 2
Similarly, from the condition (4) of quadratic Furthermore, let P be a positive definite solution of (42).
inner-boundedness, we have Decompose P as
[ ]
[ 0 ]2 ([ ]) P1 P2
,
0 P=
P2T P3
(43)
T + , , (38)
e2 e2

then, the observer gain K is given by K = P31 P2T .
which implies that In fact, it follows from (42) yields

T1 1 + T2 2 eT2 e2 + eT2 2 . (39) P2T P3 + 22 1 Inp
I 0 < 0, (44)
2 p

Thus, for any scalar 2 > 0, we get 2 Inp

T where
e2 I 0 I e2
2 1 I 02 1 0. (40) = (A22 + KA12 )T P3 + P3 (A22 + KA12 )

2 I 2 + (1 + 2 )Inp .

2016 Chinese Automatic Control Society and John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd
 Y-H Lan et al.: Observer Design for Fractional-Order Nonlinear Systems 1473

That is, if there exists a solution for (42), then there exists is a reduced-order observer for system (1) if there exist
a solution for (29) in Theorem 3 as well. On the other symmetrical positive matrix P R(np)(np) , matrix F of
hand, it is possible that the condition (42) has no solu- appropriate dimensions together with two real positive
tion, but (29) is still feasible (see, e.g., the case 2 of the scalars 1 > 0, 2 > 0 such that
Example in Section V), which implies that the observer
(28) together with the sufficient condition (29) are less 11 12 13
conservative than that in [20]. 2 Ip 0 < 0, (50)

2 np
I
It should be pointed out the assumption of C =
[Ip 0] is not crucial for reduced-order observer design. where
Next, we will discuss the situation for a general C. By
Smith orthogonal procedure [32], there is an invertible 11 = PA 22 + A
T P + F A
12 + A
T F T
22 12
matrix S Rpp such that C = SC, where C Rpn and + (1 + 2 )I,
T
C C = Ip . The original system (1) becomes 1 T
1 + PW T + 2
12 = FW W2 ,
2
{ 2
Da x(t) = Ax(t) + (x(t), u(t)), 1
(45) 2 + PW T + 2
13 = FW W3 ,

(t) = Cx(t), 3
2

by the output equivalent transformation (t) = S1 y(t) = Moreover, the observer gain matrix, L is given by L =

Cx(t). By extending matrix C to an n n orthogonal

P1 F.
matrix W = [C T F T ]T , where F R(np)n , and
applying the equivalent transformation x(t) = Wx(t), the Proof. It follows from = x 1 that
original system (1) is then equivalent to
{ a Da x 2 = [L Inp ]Da x LD a x 1
=A x(t)
+ W (W 1 x(t), [ ][ ]
D x(t) u(t)), A 11 A 12 x 1
(t) = C x(t),

(46)
= [L Inp ]
A21 A 22 x 2
( [ ] )
= WAW T , C = CW T = [I 0]. 1 x 1
where A p + [L Inp ]W W , u LDa x 1
For the sake of simplicity of presentation, we intro- x 2
duce the following notations: = (A 22 + L A
12 )x 2 + (L A 11 + A 21 ) LD
a
( [ ] )
[ ] [ ] T
A 12
11 A W1 W2 + [LW1 + W2 LW2 + W3 ] W 1
,u .
x 2
A=
A21 A 22 , W = W T W3 , (47)
2
Subtracting (49) from above equation, then the error e 2 =
where A 11 , W1 Rpp and A
22 , W3 , R(np)(np) . Since
x 2 (t) x 2 (t) is then governed by
W is a orthogonal matrix, we have
[ ] 22 + L A
Da e 2 = (A 12 )e2
W1T W2T (51)
W 1 T
=W = . (48) 1 + W T LW
+ [LW 2 + W3 ],
W2 W3T 2

The following result provides a solution to the where

reduced-order observer design problem for the system (1) ( [ ] ) ( [ ] )
with a general C. = W 1 y , u W 1 y , u

x2 x 2
([ ] )
Theorem 4. For fractional-order nonlinear system (1), N1 + N2 x 2
= ,u
assume that the conditions (3) and (4) hold true. Then, N2T + N3 x 2
([ ] ) (52)
N1 + N2 x 2
Da x 2 (t) ,u
N T + N3 x 2
22 + L A
= (A 12 )x 2 [ ] 2
1

+ (L A 11 + A 21 )S1 y LD
a S1 y (49) = 2 ,

( [ 1 ] )
S y
+ [L Inp ]W W 1 ,u , 1 Rp ,
2 Rnp .
x 2

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By the same argument as in the proof of Theorem 3, where

we conclude that if there exists symmetrical positive
matrix P R(np)(np) such that
22 + A
11 =PA T P + PL A
12 + A T L T P
22 12
1 + PW T PLW
11 PLW 2 + PW T
2 3 + (1 + 2 )I,
0 0 < 0, (53)
1 T
1 + PW T + 2 W2 ,
0 12 =PLW 2
2

where 2 + PW T + 2
13 =PLW 1
W3 ,
3
2
22 + A
11 1 = PA
T P + PL A
12 + A
T L T P,
22 12 then the error dynamics (51) is asymptotically stable. The
rest of the proof is similar to that of Theorem 3 and
then the error dynamics (51) is asymptotically stable.
thus omitted.
Using the one-sided Lipschitz condition (3), it yields
([ ]) [ W e ]2
W2 e2 2 2 V. NUMERICAL EXAMPLE
, , (54)
W3T e2 W3T e2

In this section, a numerical example is presented to
which implies that demonstrate the validity of the design method.
T W2 e2 +
T W T e2
1 2 3 Example. Consider the following fractional-order non-
eT2 W2T W2 e2 + eT2 W3T W3 e2 = eT2 e2 . linear model of a moving object in the cartesian coordi-
nates [18,20,33]:
Therefore, for any positive scalar 1 , we get
{ a
T W T D x(t) = Ax(t) + (x(t)),
e2 Ip 2 W3 e2 (60)
y(t) = Cx(t),
1 0 1 0.
2 2
0 (55)
1
2 0 2
where a = 0.85 and

Similarly, condition (4) leads to [ ]

A = 11
, C = [1 0],
1 1
[ W e ]2 ([ ])
[ ]

T 2 2
+
W2 e2
, , (x(t)) =
x1 (x21 + x22 )
.
W3T e2 W3T e2 x2 (x21 + x22 )

(56)
As pointed in [18,20], the nonlinear function () is
which implies that locally Lipschitz and on any set D = {x R2 x r},
the Lipschitz constant is 3r2 . On the other hand, let
T 1 +
T 2 ( )
1 2
(57) 4 2 2
eT e2 + eT W T 1 + eT W3
2. r = min , + , < 0, + > 0.
2 2 2 2 4 4 4
Therefore, for any scalar 2 > 0, we have
from [18,20], one can verify the quadratically
T W3
W2T inner-bounded property of (x(t)) in D with constants
e2 e2
Ip 2 and .
2
0 1 0.
2
1 Ip (58)
2 I 2 Case 1. Full-order observer design
np
Consider the non-fragile full-order observer
By the same argument line in the proof of { a
Theorem 3, one can conclude that if there exists symmet- D x = Ax + (x)
+ (L + L)(y y ),
(61)
rical positive matrix P R(np)(np) such that
y = C x,

11 12 13 where L 2. We first assume that the Lipschitz

2 Ip 0 < 0, (59) constant of the nonlinear function (x(t)) satisfying
= 0.60.
2 Inp

2016 Chinese Automatic Control Society and John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd
 Y-H Lan et al.: Observer Design for Fractional-Order Nonlinear Systems 1475

Using the proposed method in [17] and solving

the LMI feasible problem (45) in Remark 1. We can not
find a feasible solution. However, we solve the feasible
problem (7) in Theorem 1. We find it is feasible. The
feasible solution is:
[ ]
64.3975
L= .
409.2553

Next, we consider the quadratically inner-

bounded property of (x(t)). Setting = 100, =
Fig. 1. The simulation for state x1 by full-order observer
99, we find the LMI (18) in Theorem 2 is feasible.
(solid line: real value, dotted line: estimated value).
The stabilizing gain matrix is:
[ ]
116.2582
L= .
2.3640

To simulate the fractional order operator, we use

Oustaloups recursive poles/zeros filter [34] (an integer
order system) of order three to approximate the frac-
1
tional operator s0.9 , which has an error about 2 dB in
the frequency range = 102 rad/s to = 102 rad/s.
On the other hand, from the viewpoint of vis-
coelastic theory, the initial history should be the state
over a time-interval, not a state at a given time. To Fig. 2. The simulation for state x2 by full-order observer
consider the physically consistent initial conditions (solid line: real value, dotted line: estimated value).
which described by the state value of the integer order
systems, a simple solution could be obtained by the
following procedure:

Step 1. Consider the system at rest: set null initial con-

ditions for each of the two integer order systems
that approximate the integrators;
Step 2. Simulate the system with a given input;
Step 3. Collect the state values of the integer order sys-
tems that approximate the integrators;
Step 4. Set the initial conditions for the system by using
the collected state values in Step 3;
Step 5. Set null initial conditions for the observer.
Fig. 3. The simulation for state x2 by reduced-order observer
(solid line: real value, dotted line: estimated value).
Now, we set the initial time t0 = 0 and assume
that the system was at rest at td = 1. The pseudo
impulse input of the system in Step 2 is given by: that the proposed non-fragile observer quickly and
{ accurately tracks the system states.
1, 1 t < 0,
v(t) = (62)
0, t 0. Case 2. Reduced-order observer design
We propose a reduced-order observer as (28). Set-
Such a procedure yields that ting = 100, = 99 and using the Matlab LMI
toolbox, we find that the LMI (29) in Theorem 3 is

x(0) = (0.022 0.024 0.012)T , x(0) = (0 0 0)T . feasible. The stabilizing gain L = 3.2963.

Fig. 1 and Fig. 2 show the trajectories of x1 (t), With a similar a procedure to that in Case 1,
x2 (t) and their estimates, respectively. It can be seen the following initial conditions are obtained: x(0) =

2016 Chinese Automatic Control Society and John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd
1476 Asian Journal of Control, Vol. 18, No. 4, pp. 14671477, July 2016
(0.063 0.080 0.920)T , x(0) = (0.03 0 0.15)T . The sim-
ulation for state x2 (t) by the reduce-order observer (28)
is presented in Fig. 3. From the figure, we know that the
effect of state trajectory tracking is satisfactory.
For comparison, we consider the case of integral
order (a = 1). Setting = 100, = 97 and using the
proposed method in [20], we can not find a feasible solu-
tion for the feasible problem (42) in Remark 3. However,
we solve the feasible problem LMI (29) in Theorem 3. We
get the feasible solution is L = 3.3072, which implies
that the observer (28) together with the sufficient con-
dition (29) in our paper is less conservative than that
in [20].
VI. CONCLUSION
In this paper, based on the continuous frequency
distributed equivalent model and indirect Lyapunov
approach, an LMI approach to design a full-order as
well as reduced-order state observer for fractional-order
one-sided Lipschitz nonlinear systems has been pre-
sented. The obtained conditions for observer error
dynamic systems are less conservative than some exist-
ing ones in recent literature. The validity of the method
is verified by a numerical example.
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Yong-Hong Lan received his B.S. and
M.S. degrees in Applied Mathematics
from Xiangtan University, Xiangtan,
China in 1999 and 2004, respectively;
and his Ph.D. degree in Control Theory
and Control Engineering from Central
South University, Changsha, China in
2010. He is currently Assistant Professor in the School of
Information Engineering, Xiangtan University, Xiang-
tan, China. His current research interest is fractional
order control systems.
Wang-liang Liang received his B.S.
degree in Automation from Xiangtan
University, Xiangtan, China in 2013.
He is a Master degree candidate stu-
dent in Control Theory and Control
Engineering from Xiangtan Univer-
sity, Xiangtan, China . His current
research interests are delay systems and fractional order
control systems.
Lei Ding received his Ph.D. degree
in Control Theory and Control Engi-
neering from Central South University,
Changsha, China in 2009. He is cur-
rently Professor in the School of Infor-
mation Engineering, Jishou University,
Jishou, China. His current research
interests are computer network, artificial intelligence and
industrial process control.
Yong Zhou is Full Professor at the
faculty of Mathematics and Computa-
tional Science of Xiangtan University,
China. His research fields include anal-
ysis and optimal controls of fractional
dynamic systems and functional differ-
ential equations. Dr. Zhou has pub-
lished over 120 papers, two monographs and five text
books. In addition, he is Editor-in-Chief of Int. J. Com-
puting Science and Mathematics, and serves on the edi-
torial boards of six international mathematical journals.