Embedding System Knowledge in Nonlinear Active Disturbance Rejection Control: Insights from a Magnetic Levitation System

Two new active disturbance rejection control (ADRC) structures for nonlinear systems are introduced: a locally linearized variant and a fully nonlinear formulation. Both approaches incorporate model knowledge to enhance performance but differ in how nonlinear dynamics are integrated into the control and observer design. The first proposed structure employs a state-dependent local approximation of the nonlinear model to generate dynamic controller and observer gains, aiming to balance robustness and accuracy. In contrast, the second one directly embeds the full nonlinear dynamics into both the control law and extended state observer, tightly coupling performance to model fidelity. The proposed methods were experimentally validated on a magnetic levitation system, known for its strong nonlinearity, and compared with a classical linear ADRC (LADRC). Furthermore, stability analysis of the methods was conducted using Lyapunov theory. Results show that the linearized structure consistently improves regulation performance over LADRC and, in most cases, achieves similar results to nonlinear ADRC with lower computational effort. However, the performance of the nonlinear approach may degrade under modeling inaccuracies and limited observer bandwidth. This study highlights that the way model information is integrated–rather than its level of detail–has a decisive impact on control quality. Finally, practical design guidelines are provided to assist in selecting an appropriate ADRC structure for nonlinear applications where robustness, computational efficiency, and limited model knowledge must be balanced.