Design of a novel state-feedback robust [Formula: see text] sliding-mode controller for a hydraulic turbine governing system.

This paper presents a novel state-feedback robust sliding-mode controller (SFRSMC) based on a mixed approach to enhance the control performance of hydraulic turbine governing systems (HTGS) with complex conduit systems under external load disturbances and control signal uncertainties. A state-space model incorporating the dynamic responses of the HTGS is developed. The SFRSMC is designed using the sliding-mode equivalent control principle, with a disturbance observer to estimate and mitigate unknown disturbances. To balance robustness and optimality, mixed linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) are utilized to determine the critical performance sliding matrix via an auxiliary feedback control method. The effectiveness of the proposed control scheme is validated through time-domain simulations under various operating scenarios, including different parameter variations of the HTGS.