Experimental Performance Verification of a Synchronization Based State Observer Using Only Collision Time Information

A state observer that only uses the collision time information has recently been developed for linear time-invariant multibody systems with unilateral constraints. The observer is based on synchronization and makes use of switched geometric unilateral constraints, which generate a unidirectional coupling in a master-slave setup. In presence of uncertainties, such as model inaccuracies or disturbances, an exact reconstruction of the observed state is not possible. As a first step in assessing the robustness of the proposed observer, we present an experimental verification of the observer’s performance. Furthermore, we account for dry friction in the observer design.