State feedback method is quite popular in control engineering field. However, some popular properties of state feedback approach cannot be used while any of the system states cannot be obtained beforehand. Therefore, this paper proposes a new observer design for a class of uncertain systems through sliding mode control theory. Based on strictly positive real concept, the stability of the equivalent error system is verified. Further, by using the generalized matrix inverse approach, the proposed switching term can drive the error states to zero, and it ensures the global reaching condition of the sliding mode of the error system. Moreover, the presented sliding mode observer is proposed to possess the invariance property to the uncertainty and/or external disturbance. Furthermore, the developed sliding mode observer is extended to release the limitation of knowing the bounds of the lumped perturbations in advance. That is, not only a new sliding mode observer but also a new adaptive sliding mode observer is proposed in this paper. Finally, three examples are illustrated to demonstrate the validity of the proposed sliding mode observer and the proposed adaptive sliding mode observer. Copyright (c) 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.