Abstract
In this article an adaptive decentralised sliding mode controller and observer for asynchronous nonlinear large-scale systems with backlash is proposed. In the literature, only the synchronous case for input nonlinearities such as dead-zone and saturation is found. In this article, the asynchronous case for systems with backlash is studied considering the backlash effect. Owing to the complexity of the backlash nonlinearity, an adaptive decentralised controller is proposed because of the capability of this strategy to deal with uncertainties and to improve the system performance when this nonlinearity is found. Additionally, a decentralised sliding mode observer is proposed in order to estimate the states of the system.