Abstract: | Exact decentralized output‐feedback Lyapunov‐based designs of direct model reference adaptive control (MRAC) for linear interconnected delay systems with MIMO subsystems are introduced. The design process uses a co‐ordinated decentralized structure of adaptive control with reference model co‐ordination which requires an exchange of signals between the different reference models. It is shown that in the framework of the reference model co‐ordination zero residual tracking error is possible, exactly as in the case with SISO subsystems. We develop decentralized MRAC on the base of a priori information about only the local subsystems gain frequency matrices without additional a priori knowledge about the full system gain frequency matrix. To achieve a better adaptation performance we propose proportional, integral time‐delayed adaptation laws. The appropriate Lyapunov–Krasovskii type functional is suggested to design the update mechanism for the controller parameters, and in order to prove stability. Two different adaptive DMRAC schemes are proposed, being the first asymptotic exact zero tracking results for linear interconnected delay systems with MIMO subsystems. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. |