Enhanced performance of disturbance observer by embedding a filter and its application to hard disk drive

In this paper, we present a new control structure which is obtained by adding an appropriately designed filter to a conventional disturbance observer. The proposed controlled system preserves advantages of a system with the conventional disturbance observer; disturbance rejection and nominal performance recovery. In particular, by embedding the filter, the disturbance rejection performance is enhanced compared with that of the classical disturbance observer-based controlled system. Moreover, we suggest a condition for the robust internal stability of the considered system in this paper. Simulation results regarding an effect of relatively high-frequency disturbance on hard disk drive are also presented.