Adaptive Tracking Control for High Performance DC Drives

This paper presents a novel application of a modified adaptive controller to a dc motor for high performance tracking applications, such as robotics, actuation and manipulation. By the proposed technique, the rotor position and/or the speed of the dc motor is forced to follow preselected tracks, even when the load condition varies. An algorithm based on Minimum Variance Self Tuning control is developed for this purpose. The adaptive controller is effective even in the presence of external disturbances, provided that the system exhibits minimum phase characteristics. The effectiveness of the controller is demonstrated by using a general purpose nonlinear simulation software. The simplicity of the algorithm and the promising test results prove that this proposed controller is very effective in high performance tracking applications.