Introduction to adaptive control

Adaptive control is the control method used by a controller which must adapt to a controlled system
with parameters which vary, or are initially uncertain. For example, as an aircraft flies, its mass will
slowly decrease as a result of fuel consumption; a control law is needed that adapts itself to such
changing conditions. Adaptive control is different from robust control in that it does not need a priori
information about the bounds on these uncertain or time-varying parameters; robust control
guarantees that if the changes are within given bounds the control law need not be changed, while
adaptive control is concerned with control law changing itself.
Basic Objective :
 maintain consistent performance of a system in the presence of uncertainty and variations in
plant parameters
 Adaptive control is superior to robust control in dealing with uncertainties in constant or slow-
varying parameters
 Robust control has advantages in dealing with disturbances, quickly varying parameters, and
unmodeled dynamics

Classification Of Adaptive Control Techniques:

In general one should distinguish between
 Feedforward adaptive control
 Feedback adaptive control
 Direct methods –Direct methods are ones wherein the estimated parameters are those directly
used in the adaptive controller.
 Indirect methods- Indirect methods are those in which the estimated parameters are used to
calculate required controller parameters
 Hybrid methods - Hybrid methods rely on both estimation of parameters and direct modification
of the control law.
Model-Reference Adaptive Control (MRAC):
 Model reference adaptive control (MRAC) is one of the main approaches to adaptive control.
The basic structure of a MRAC scheme is shown in Figure 6.1]]]. The reference model is chosen
to generate the desired trajectory, ym, that the plant output yp has to follow. The tracking error
e1 4 = yp−ym represents the deviation of the plant output from the desired trajectory. The
closed-loop plant is made up of an ordinary feedback control law that contains the plant and a
controller C(θ) and an adjustment mechanism that generates the controller parameter
estimates θ(t) on-line. The purpose of this chapter is to design the controller and parameter
adjustment mechanism so that all signals in the closed-loop plant are bounded and the plant
output yp tracks ym as close as possible. MRAC schemes can be characterized as direct or
indirect and with normalized or unnormalized adaptive laws. In direct MRAC, the parameter
vector θ of the controller C(θ) is updated directly by an adaptive law, whereas in indirect MRAC
θ is calculated at each time t by solving a certain algebraic equation that relates θ with the on-
line estimates of the plant parameters. In both direct and indirect MRAC with normalized
adaptive laws, the form of C(θ), motivated from the known parameter case, is kept unchanged.
The controller C(θ) is combined with an adaptive law (or an adaptive law and

an algebraic equation in the indirect case) that is developed independently . This design procedure
allows the use of a wide class of adaptive laws that includes gradient, least-squares and those based on
the SPR-Lyapunov design approach. On the other hand, in the case of MRAC schemes with unnormalized
adaptive laws, C(θ) is modified to lead to an error equation whose form allows the use of the
SPRLyapunov design approach for generating the adaptive law. In this case, the design of C(θ) and
adaptive law is more complicated in both the direct and indirect case, but the analysis is much simpler
and follows from a consideration of a single Lyapunov-like functio. These examples are used to motivate
the more general and complicated designs treated in the rest of the chapter. In Section 6.3 we define
the model reference control (MRC) problem for SISO plants and solve it for the case of known plant
parameters. The control law developed in this section is used in the rest of the chapter to form MRAC
schemes in the unknown parameter case. The design of direct MRAC schemes with unnormalized
adaptive laws is treated in Section 6.4 for plants with relative degree n∗ = 1,2,3. The case of n∗> 3
follows by using the same techniques as in the case of n∗ = 3 and is omitted because of the complexity
of the control law that increases with n∗.
ApplicationOf Adaptive Control
Typical applications of adaptive control are:
 Self-tuning of subsequently fixed linear controllers during the implementation phase for one
operating point;
 Self-tuning of subsequently fixed robust controllers during the implementation phase for whole
range of operating points;
 Self-tuning of fixed controllers on request if the process behaviour changes due to ageing, drift,
wear etc.;
 Adaptive control of linear controllers for nonlinear or time-varying processes;
 Adaptive control or self-tuning control of nonlinear controllers for nonlinear processes;
 Adaptive control or self-tuning control of multivariable controllers for multivariable processes
(MIMO systems);
 A particularly successful application of adaptive control has been adaptive flight control. This
body of work has focused on guaranteeing stability of a model reference adaptive control
scheme using Lyapunov arguments. Several successful flight-test demonstrations have been
conducted, including fault tolerant adaptive control.