Necdet Sinan Özbek
 The development of a new chattering-eliminated fractional
second-order SMC approach capable of stabilizing a wide range
of uncertain second-order systems vulnerable to internal/exter-
nal disturbance.
 The tracking capability and robustness of the control strategies
are validated on a real set-up with a set of experimental
applications.
The suggested fractional second-order SMC has the following
advantages: (i) increased robustness capability; (ii) simpler to
develop and appropriate for experimental realizations; (iii)
improved transient response; (iv) reduced chattering; and (v) high
precision reference tracking.
The importance of the study can be addressed from two per-
spectives. First, from a practical point of view, electromechanical
systems, which are formed from an industrial actuator to perform
many tasks in industrial applications associated with various oper-
ations need position/speed control. The speed control has a direct
impact on machine operation and is critical for performance and
outcome, which are either directly or indirectly affected by the
motor’s speed. However, parameter uncertainties and load changes
are generally evaluated. Thus, it has become necessary to investi-
gate the speed control problem of electromechanical systems with
sophisticated control tools. With the above assessments, the cur-
rent research proposes a new fractional second-order SMC tech-
nique that can manage uncertainties, parameter changes, and
internal/external disturbances. Further, it is reported that the pro-
posed fractional SMC scheme generates improved transient
response and convergence characteristics, and provides less chat-
tering than traditional control approaches when utilized on electri-
cal machines.
The remainder of the manuscript is organized as follows: Sys-
tem description, experimental procedure, and fundamentals of
fractional calculus are addressed in the next section. The controller
design steps and the stability are highlighted in section III. Numer-
ical simulations are discussed in section IV. Experimental applica-
tions are demonstrated in section V. A detailed performance
comparison is reported in section VI. Contributions of the study
are highlighted in section VII. Finally, the conclusion and future
directions are drawn in the last section.
2. Model description of the experimental set-up and theoretical
fundamentals of fractional-order calculus
Electromechanical systems are extensively used across several
industry sectors. Specifically, the ease of speed regulation of the
Direct Current (DC) motor makes them one of the most commonly
employed actuators in the automotive industry, robotics, and
mechatronics [37]. The goal of modeling a DC motor is to identify
the guiding differential equations that represent the motor’s prop-
erties and connect the input power to the rotor’s torque. The phys-
ical scheme of the system is depicted in Fig. 1, wherein the
electromagnetic torque can be controlled by the voltage supplied
to the armature [38]. The dynamical equations of the DC motor
are given as [39]:
Fig. 1. The electromechanical system.
Engineering Science and Technology, an International Journal 35 (2022) 101212
La _ia ðtÞ ¼ v a ðtÞ  Ra ia ðtÞ  K m xm ðtÞ ð1Þ
Jm x
_ m ðtÞ ¼ T m ðtÞ  Rm xm ðtÞ  T s ðtÞ  T f ðxm Þ ð2Þ
_ L ðtÞ ¼ T s ðtÞ  T d ðtÞ  T f ðxL Þ  RL xL ðtÞ
JL x ð3Þ
T s ðtÞ ¼ Bs ðxm ðtÞ  xL ðtÞÞ  ks ðhm ðtÞ  hL ðtÞÞ ð4Þ
h_ m ðtÞ ¼ xm ðtÞ; h_ L ðtÞ ¼ xL ðtÞ ð5Þ
where the parameter are described as v a is the voltage of the arma-
ture, La and Ra are the inductance and resistance, ia is the current.
Furthermore, T f presents the nonlinear friction, Jm ; JL are the
moments of inertia, Rm ; RL , denote the viscous frictions, Bs is the
shaft’s inner damping coefficient, K M is the torque coefficient, T m
is the generated torque, T d is the external load disturbance, T s is
the transmitted shaft torque, and xm ; xL denote the rotational
speeds. The nonlinear friction can be obtained as given:
T f ðxÞ ¼ ðw0 þ w1 ew2 jxj ÞsgnðxÞ ð6Þ
where wi > 0; i ¼ 0; . . . ; 5, and it is to be noted that the function
depends on the rotational speed of the system, see [40] for further
discussion.
The resistance, inductance, and back emf constant factors play a
significant role in the dynamic model of the DC motor. These
parameters, however, may change depending on the operational
conditions. Further, parameters that alter with temperature, for
example, might lead to speed uncertainty [1]. The nonlinear model
of the electromechanical system comprises different sources of
uncertainties due to the friction, mechanical structure resonance,
see Fig. 2.
In practice, the model cannot be predicted exactly and
unknown uncertainties are constantly present. It is difficult to
specify all of the parameters in the plant model. However, several
nonlinear elements, such as unmodeled characteristic, parameter
drift, and disturbance, are incorporated and a system model with
lumped disturbance is developed. To make the modeling system
more efficient, a second-order model with perturbations and
imperfections may be used to mimic the electromechanical plant.
Thus, an estimated reduced-order model can be rearranged by con-
sidering the output as xL ðtÞ ¼ ym ðtÞ and the input as v a ðtÞ ¼ uðtÞ.
Toward this goal, a step input is applied to a real-time electrome-
chanical system, then the graphical methods are conducted to con-
struct the parametric model by considering the measured output.
€m ðtÞ ¼ an y_ m ðtÞ  bn ym ðtÞ þ cn uðtÞ
y ð7Þ
where the nominal model parameters an ; bn , and cn , can be given as
292:84; 1680:26, and 1702:62, respectively. The produced real-
output and model response are given in Fig. 3. Considering the
uncertainties, the system can be rewritten as [41]:
€m ðtÞ ¼ ðan þ DaÞy_ m ðtÞ  ðbn þ DbÞym ðtÞ þ ðcn þ DcÞuðtÞ þ /ðtÞ
y
ð8Þ
Fig. 2. The nonlinear block diagram of the electromechanical system.