Summary
In this paper, an unknown input observer is proposed for servomechanisms with unknown dynamics (eg, nonlinear friction, parameter uncertainties, and external disturbance). An unknown input observer is developed by introducing auxiliary filtered variables in terms of first‐order low‐pass filters, where only one constant (filter parameter) needs to be tuned. A modified funnel variable is developed by using the tracking error to replace the scaling factor to improve the transient and steady‐state performance of the control systems. Then, a sliding mode surface with the new transformed error is defined and used to design a funnel nonsingular terminal sliding mode controller to achieve finite‐time convergence. In addition, the proposed funnel nonsingular terminal sliding mode controller method avoids the singularity problem in the conventional sliding mode control via modifying the terminal sliding manifold. Finally, experimental results are given to illustrate the effectiveness of the suggested control scheme.