On Parameter Selection of Nonsingular Predefined-time Terminal Sliding Mode With the Fixed-time Convergence Guarantee

Abstract: This paper study the parameter selection of predefined-time sliding mode and try to design a general nonsingular predefined-time terminal sliding mode. 1). On parameter selection: Some existing predefined-time sliding modes are designed to focus on the reaching time and ignore the characterization of the equilibrium point i.e. x_e= 0. In actual engineer, the system can only converge to a small neighborhood near the equilibrium point because of the existence of uncertainty i.e. x_e \to 0. The actual equilibrium point should be deduced by taking the limit but not directly solve the equilibrium point. Hence, the actual selection of exponential term is suggested to be not 1 to make system convergence to the equilibrium point within predefined time. 2). On singularity-avoidance: Based on the exponential feature of predefined-time stability systems, a mathematic concept of switching sliding mode \cite{su1994adaptive} is applied in the design of nonsingular predefined-time terminal sliding mode. However, this class of sliding mode switching method will cause a singular problem, which can be described as control input u \to \infty if the system state x \to 0 and any-order time derivative of x is not 0. Hence, a non-singular selection condition for each recursive sliding mode surface is explored in this paper to realize the global finiteness of control input. In addition, an unnecessary chattering of control input will also be caused by the sliding mode switching frequency, and a novel switching condition will be applied in the controller to reduce this chattering. Simulations will be carried out to validate the effect of the novel nonsingular predefined-time sliding mode control method to some extent.