Reduced order observer design for nonlinear systems

This work is a geometric study of reduced order observer design for nonlinear systems. Our reduced order observer design is applicable for Lyapunov stable nonlinear systems with a linear output equation and is a generalization of Luenberger’s reduced order observer design for linear systems. We establish the error convergence for the reduced order estimator for nonlinear systems using the center manifold theory for flows. We illustrate our reduced order observer construction for nonlinear systems with a physical example, namely a nonlinear pendulum without friction.