2019 22nd International Conference on Electrical Machines and Systems (ICEMS)
Extended State Observer Based Second Order
Sliding Mode Control Strategy for DC-DC Buck
Converters
Hao Lin∗ , Yunfei Yin∗ , Jianxing Liu∗ , Ligang Wu∗ and Leopoldo G. Franquelo†,∗
∗ Department of control science and engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China 150001.
† Electronic Engineering Department, School of Engineering, Universidad de Sevilla, 41092 Seville, Spain.
Email: jx.liu@hit.edu.cn
Abstract—The parametric uncertainties and external distur-
bances in the buck converter would cause degradation of the
control performance. In this paper, a disturbance observer based
second order sliding mode (SOSM) control strategy for buck
converter is proposed to solve this problem. The double-loop
control strategy is set up to force the output voltage and
inductor current to their references. The load variation which
significantly influences the control performance can be considered
as the external disturbance. The parametric uncertainty of the
capacitor and the load variation are estimated by an extended
state observer (ESO), and the parametric uncertainty of the
inductor is dealt by the SOSM controller. The strategy has good
tracking performance and disturbance rejection ability against
parametric uncertainties and external disturbances. Simulation
results verifies the performance of the presented control strategy.
Index Terms—DC-DC buck converter, second order sliding
mode control, extended state observer
I. I NTRODUCTION
DC-DC buck converter is a main type of switched power
converter, which is widely applied in industrial systems [1].
The DC-DC converters are widely used in the systems such
as photovoltaic systems [2], [3], DC motor [4] and aerospace
applications [5], [6], etc. In these applications they are usually
used to adjust the voltage to its reference under the satisfactory
conditions. On the one hand, parametric uncertainties of the
inductor or capacitor are inevitable. On the other hand, dis-
turbances from variation of the load resistance, the output and
input voltage are common. The uncertainties and disturbances
will result in degradation of the control performance, so it’s
an urgent need to design a controller with robust disturbance
rejection ability, fast dynamic response, low overshoot and
small steady-state error. A series of control methods have
been proposed to solve these problems, such as backstepping
control strategy [7], [8], model predictive control strategy [9],
fuzzy logic control strategy [10], and sliding mode control
strategy [11]–[13], etc. These control strategies can improve
the performances of the DC-DC buck converters in different
aspects.
Sliding mode control (SMC) for buck converters has be-
come a favourable alternative for control because it’s less
978-1-7281-3398-0/19/$31.00 
c 2019 IEEE
978-1-7281-3398-0/19/$31.00 ©2019 IEEE
sensitive to parametric uncertainties and external disturbances.
However, traditional SMC has two drawbacks. First, the
output voltage can only converge to zero exponentially in
infinite time. Second, the controller is discontinuous which
would cause chattering around the sliding manifold. Many
approaches have been proposed to solve this problems, such as
high-order sliding mode (HOSM) method [14], non-singular
terminal sliding mode control (NTSMC) [15], [16], integral
sliding mode control (ISMC) [17], [18] and SOSM, etc. On
one hand, SOSM can maintain the good performances of
the traditional sliding mode control. On the other hand, it
can reduce the chattering effect [19], [20]. In this paper, a
SOSM control strategy is applied to reduce the chattering and
converge the current tracking error to zero in finite time.
In the past few decades, various observers have been pro-
posed to estimate the disturbances for the converter, such as E-
SO [21]–[23], proportional integral observer [24], disturbance
observer (DOB) [25]–[27], and unknown input observer (UIO)
[28], etc. The observers have been proved to be effective
in compensating the system performance degraded by the
external disturbances and model parametric uncertainties. For
ESO, the disturbances are regarded as new states of the system.
The states of the system and the disturbances can be obtained
easily by simple computations, and the disturbances estimation
is used in the controller to compensate the system perfor-
mance. In this paper, an ESO-based SOSM control strategy
is proposed to improve the disturbance rejection ability of the
DC-DC buck converter, which includes an external loop and an
internal loop. The external one is a output voltage regulation
loop which adjusts the output voltage to the reference value
and produces the reference current. The internal one is the
current tracking loop which forces the inductor current to the
reference value. The parametric uncertainty of the capacitor
and the load variation are estimated by an ESO, and the
parametric uncertainty of the inductor can be dealt by the
controller.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. In Section II,
the mathematical model of the buck converter is introduced.
The detail of the ESO-based SOSM control strategy is present-
ed in Section III. Section IV provides simulation results, and
the performance of the presented control strategy is verified.
 2019 22nd International Conference on Electrical Machines and Systems (ICEMS)

A brief conclusion is given in Section V.

II. S YSTEM M ODEL

The DC-DC buck converter structure is shown in Fig. 1.

The circuit is composed of an input voltage (vin ), a control
switch (V T ), a diode (D), C is a circuit capacitor, L is an
inductor and R is the load resistance. The system model can
be written as
x2 x1
ẋ1 = − , (1)
C RC
x1 vin
ẋ2 = − + u, (2) Fig. 2. Control structure
L L
where x1 is the output voltage vo , x2 is the inductor current
iL and the control signal is u. Considering the parametric A. Extended State Observer
uncertainties, the inductor and capacitor can be described as The voltage description equation of the DC-DC buck con-
verter (1) is able to be rewritten as
C = C0 + ΔC, L = L0 + ΔL, (3) x2
ẋ1 = + d1 , (4)
C0
where C0 , L0 are the nominal values of capacitor and inductor,
respectively. ΔC, ΔL are the parametric uncertainties which d˙1 = h, (5)
are unknown and vary slowly. where d1 = x2 (C 0 −C)
CC0 − RCx1
. The estimation of d1 is designed
based on an ESO, which is described as
x2
ẏ1 = + y2 + l1 (x1 − y1 ), (6)
C0
ẏ2 = l2 (x1 − y1 ), (7)
where y1 = x̂1 , y2 = dˆ1 , l1 > 0, l2 > 0.
Assumption 1: For the above buck converter system (4) and
(5), suppose the disturbance d˙1 is bounded.
For the system of (4)-(7), a stability analysis of the ESO
Fig. 1. DC-DC buck converter structure is shown as follows. Define the tracking error of the output
voltage and the observation error as ex = x1 − y1 and ed =
In this paper, the objectives are stated as follows: d1 − y2 , we can obtain
1. The output voltage should be regulated to the reference       
ėx −l1 1 ex 0
value, i.e., x1 → x∗1 . = + . (8)
ėd −l2 0 ed h
2. The inductor current should track the reference current
obtained from the external loop, i.e., x2 → x∗2 . According to the Hurwitz criterion, the tracking error system
(8) can be stable when l1 > 0 and l2 > 0. The natural
3. The controller should minimize the effects of the para-
frequency wn and damping ratio ξ can be obtained:
metric uncertainties and external disturbances. 
w n = l2 , (9)
III. D ISTURBANCE O BSERVER BASED SOSM C ONTROL l1
ξ= √ , (10)
S TRATEGY 2 l2
In this paper, to achieve the above objectives, an ESO-based so the bandwidth can be obtained:

SOSM control strategy for the buck converter is proposed.
wb = wn 4ξ 4 − 4ξ 2 + 2 + (1 − 2ξ 2 ), (11)
The controller is based on the double-loop structure, which
is shown in Fig. 2. The control strategy is comprised by the Generally speaking, if the bandwidth increases, the esti-
voltage regulation loop as the external loop and the current mation will be more accurate, but the noise sensitivity will
tracking loop as the internal loop. The parametric uncertainties increase, too. When the variation rate of the load is large, l2
of the capacitor and the load variation are estimated by the needs to be large, which means that the bandwidth requires to
ESO, and the parametric uncertainty of the inductor can be be adequate enough to obtain an exact estimation of d1 , and
dealt by the controller u. The controller can converge the the disturbance rejection ability will be decreased. Therefore,
tracking error of inductor current to zero within finite time. the estimation performance and the noise tolerance should be
balanced by selecting parameters l1 and l2 cautiously.
 2019 22nd International Conference on Electrical Machines and Systems (ICEMS)

B. Controller Design where 0 < γ < 1.

1) External Loop: The target of the voltage regulation loop, Theorem 1: Considering the system (19) under Assumption
which is regarded as the external loop, is to adjust the output 2, the tracking error of the inductor current converges to zero
voltage to the reference and provide a reference current for the within finite time once the control parameters α and λ are
internal loop. Define z1 = x1 − x∗1 , the voltage mathematical chosen to satisfy the following conditions [29], [30]:
model can be obtained: Φ
x2 α> (22)
ż1 = + d1 . (12) 1−γ
C0 4Φ(1 + γ) α + Φ
λ2 ≥ (23)
The current reference x∗2 can be designed as 3
(1 − γ) α − Φ
x∗2 = C0 (−k1 z1 − dˆ1 ), (13) Remark 1: Substituting (13) into (18), the controller u can
be expressed as
where k1 is a positive constant. Assume that the internal loop
L0 x 1 ˙
acts faster than the external loop, we can obtain that u= ( − C0 dˆ1 − k1 x2 − C0 k1 dˆ1 − μ(s)). (24)
x∗2 vin L0
ż1 = + d1 = −k1 z1 + ed . (14) The controller becomes a single-loop control structure,
C0
Then the dynamics of the tracking error of the output which equals to a backstepping-sliding mode controller. The
voltage can be given by disturbance d1 becomes a mismatched disturbance in system
 t (1) and (2). The backstepping-sliding mode controller can
z1 = e−k1 t z1 (0) + e−k1 (t−τ ) ed (τ )dτ be used to deal with the mismatched disturbance d1 . The
0 disturbance estimation can be used in virtual control law in
 t
each step to compensate the mismatched disturbance.
≤ z1 (0) + sup |ed (τ )| e−k1 (t−τ ) dτ
0≤τ ≤t 0 IV. S IMULATION R ESULTS
1
≤ z1 (0) + sup |ed (τ )|, (15) According to simulation results of PI control and the ESO-
k1 0≤τ ≤t based SOSM control, the effectiveness of the proposed strategy
which means the output voltage is bounded in finite time. is verified in this section. Load resistance variation, reference
2) Internal Loop: The SOSM controller employed in the voltage variation and input voltage variation are three parts
internal loop propels the inductor current to the reference of the simulations. The parameters and variables of the sim-
value. Define z2 = x2 − x∗2 , we can get ulations are shown in Tabel I and the control parameters are
z2 shown in Table II.
ż1 = − k 1 z1 + ed , (16)
C0 TABLE I
∗
ż2 = ẋ2 − ẋ2 PARAMETERS OF B UCK C ONVERTER
x1 vin ˙
=− + u + C0 k1 ż1 + C0 dˆ1 . (17) Description Parameters Value
L L
The sliding mode variable is designed as s = z2 , and the Output voltage reference x∗1 15 (V)
Input voltage x1 30 (V)
controller is designed as follows: Load resistance R 20 (Ω)
Inductor L 2 (mH)
L0 x 1 ˙ z2
u= ( − C0 dˆ1 − C0 k1 ( − k1 z1 ) − μ(s)), (18) Capacitor C 1.5 (mF)
vin L0 C0
t
where μ(s) = λ|s|0.5 sign(s) + α 0 sign(s)dτ , λ and α are
positive constants. Then the derivative of the sliding mode TABLE II
C ONTROL PARAMETERS
variable can be obtained:
L0
ṡ = − μ(s) + ϕ, (19) Control strategy Control parameters
L External loop kp1 =1; ki1 =20
˙ PI control
where ϕ = (1 − LL0 )(C0 dˆ1 + C0 k1 ( Cz20 − k1 z1 )) + C0 k1 ed . Internal loop kp2 =0.1; ki2 =10
Considering the buck system being a physical system and l1 = 2900; l2 = 5 × 106 ; k1 = 170;
ESO-based SOSM control
the Assumption 1, it’s reasonable to assume that the variable λ = 350; α = 1 × 106
ϕ and its derivative are bounded functions,
|ϕ̇| < Φ. (20)
A. Load resistance variation
Assumption 2: Define the relationship between the nominal Increase and decrease situations of the load resistance are
inductor and real inductor as both taken into account in this simulation. The load resistance
L0 changes from 10 Ω to 20 Ω at 0.6 s, and returns to 10 Ω at 1.2
(1 − γ) ≤ ≤ (1 + γ). (21)
L s. The output voltage of both controllers are shown in Fig. 3.
 2019 22nd International Conference on Electrical Machines and Systems (ICEMS)

From the simulation results of the output voltage, regulating

effect of both controllers can be proofed. Comparing with the
PI control strategy, the dynamic performance of the proposed
control strategy is better no matter in the overshoot or set-
tling time. When the load resistance changes, the proposed
controller has shorter recovery time and less transient voltage
drop, which means the proposed controller is much more
insensitive to changes in load resistance variation.
As we can see in Fig. 4, the inductor current and its
reference of both controllers are shown. The aim of the current
tracking is achieved, but the current of the PI control strategy
is very large at the beginning and there is a small steady-
state error when the system is stable. In Fig. 5, the estimation
of d1 is shown. It can be seen that the estimation of d1
changes with the load resistance variation. ESO can provide
exact estimation for the controller to compensate the system
performance degraded by the disturbances.

B. Reference voltage variation Fig. 3. Output voltage (a) PI control, (b) ESO-based SOSM control

Increase and decrease situations of the load resistance are

both taken into account in this simulation. The reference
voltage changes from 15 V to 30 V at 0.6 s, and returns to
15 V at 1.2 s. Two controllers have the same parameters as
the simulation above. The output voltage and inductor current
of both controllers are shown in Fig. 6 and Fig. 7. As we can
see in these two figures, the output voltage regulating ability
of both controllers are proofed. However, when the reference
voltage changes, the proposed controller has shorter recovery
time and less transient drop relative to the PI controller. The
estimation of the disturbance d1 and its dynamic response
are shown in Fig. 8. It can be seen that the estimation of
d1 changes with the output voltage variation.

C. Input voltage variation

Two controllers have the same parameters as the simulation
above, and the input voltage changes from 30 V to 25 V at
1 s this time. The output voltage and inductor current of both
controllers are shown in Fig. 9 and Fig. 10. As we can see
in these two figures, the output voltage regulating ability of Fig. 4. Inductor current (a) PI control, (b) ESO-based SOSM control
both controllers are proofed, but the proposed controller has
shorter recovery time. The estimation of the disturbance d1
and its dynamic response are shown in Fig. 11. It can be seen
that the estimation of d1 doesn’t change when the system is
stable with a different input voltage.

V. C ONCLUSION
In this paper, an extended state observer based second
order sliding mode control strategy for DC-DC buck converter
has been proposed to improve the performance degraded by
the external disturbances and the parametric uncertainties.
The proposed strategy has better tracking performance and
disturbance rejection ability against parametric uncertainties
and external disturbances compared with PI control strategy.
It has been verified by three simulations including load resis- Fig. 5. Estimation of d1
tance variation, reference voltage variation and input voltage
variation.
 2019 22nd International Conference on Electrical Machines and Systems (ICEMS)

Fig. 6. Output voltage (a) PI control, (b) ESO-based SOSM control Fig. 9. Output voltage (a) PI control, (b) ESO-based SOSM control

Fig. 7. Inductor current (a) PI control, (b) ESO-based SOSM control Fig. 10. Inductor current (a) PI control, (b) ESO-based SOSM control

Fig. 8. Estimation of d1 Fig. 11. Estimation of d1

 2019 22nd International Conference on Electrical Machines and Systems (ICEMS)

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