To avoid the chattering problem in the reaching-law-based discrete-time sliding mode control (DSMC) and the generation of over-large control action in the equivalent-control-based DSMC, a new DSMC method based on non-smooth control is proposed in this paper. Since there is no use of any switching term in the proposed DSMC, it is a chattering-free SMC method. Meanwhile, it is shown that the newly proposed non-smooth control-based DSMC can guarantee the same level of accuracy for the sliding mode motion as that of an equivalent control-based DSMC. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach, a simulation example is presented. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.