Application of a robust model reference adaptive control algorithm to a nonlinear automotive actuator

Model reference adaptive control is a viable control method to impose the demanded dynamics on plants whose parameters are affected by large uncertainty. In this paper, we show by means of experiments that robust adaptive methods can effectively face nonlinearities that are common to many automotive electromechanical devices. We consider here, as a representative case study, the control of a strongly nonlinear automotive actuator. The experimental results confirm the effectiveness of the method to cope with unmodeled nonlinear terms and unknown parameters. In addition, the engineering performance indexes computed on experimental data clearly show that the robust adaptive strategy provides better performance compared with those given by a classical model-based control solution with fixed gains.