Tuning of linear ADRC with known plant information

Linear active disturbance rejection control (ADRC) is known for its simplicity and its performance in disturbance attenuation. Currently, tuning of linear ADRC (LADRC) is via the bandwidth idea. In this paper, tuning of LADRC with known plant information is investigated. It is shown that there are limitations using only two bandwidths to tune the LADRC controllers. To take advantage of the known plant information, a generalized ADRC (GADRC) method is proposed. Then the intrinsic link between the conventional LADRC and GADRC is analyzed. It is shown that the available plant model information used in GADRC can be utilized in the designs of the observer gain and the controller gain of the conventional LADRC. Simulation results demonstrate that with known plant information incorporated, the performance of a conventional LADRC can indeed be improved, especially for unstable, time-delayed and non-minimum phase processes.