Self-tuning control of non-linear servomotor: Standard versus dual approach

Abstract

The majority of processes met in the industrial practice have stochastic characteristics and eventually they embody non-linear behaviour. Traditional controllers with fixed parameters are often unsuitable for such processes because their parameters change. The changes of process parameters are caused by changes in the manufacturing process, in the nature of the input materials, fuel, machinery use (wear) etc. Fixed controllers cannot deal with this. One possible alternative for improving the quality of control for such processes is the use of adaptive control systems. Different approaches were proposed and utilized. One successful approach is represented by self-tuning controller (STC). This approach is also called system with indirect adaptation (with direct identification). The main idea of an STC is based on the combination of a recursive identification procedure and a selected controller synthesis. Presently, most of the STCs are based on the Certainty Equivalence (CE) Principle, which is only suboptimal. One of the possibilities to improve the quality of these adaptive control methods is usage of an Adaptive Dual Control (the bicriterial approach). In this paper, the bicriterial approach is verified and compared with some other adaptive control approaches based on the CE Principle by the real-time control of a highly non-linear laboratory model, the DR300 Speed Control with Variable Load.