This paper proposes a terminal sliding mode observer for a class of nonlinear systems to achieve finite time convergence for all error states. Compared to standard sliding mode observers which only enable finite time convergence of the output error, the observer in this paper makes use of fractional powers to reduce other non-output errors to zero in finite time. A 2-degree-of-freedom robotic manipulator is used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed observer. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.