Model free adaptive control with data dropouts

It is well-known that robustness refers to the ability dealing with unknown uncertainties or unmodeled dynamics of the model-based control theory. However, this kind of robustness no longer has any significance for model free or data-driven control theory because the controller is designed only using I/O data of the controlled plant. In this paper, a novel robustness of the model free control or data-driven control is presented when the system is controlled by the model free adaptive control (MFAC) scheme. It is assumed that an MFAC scheme is implemented via a network control system and that data dropout occurs due to a failing sensor, actuator or network failure, resulting in what it is called intermittent MFAC. The stability of such a MFAC scheme is analyzed by the statistical approach. It is shown that the MFAC system is still stable when data dropout occurs, and the data dropout impacts the convergence speed.