A simulation platform for characteristic model-based adaptive control systems

Characteristic modeling and the adaptive control design based on it have attracted increasing attention from the research community due to their many successful practical applications that have been reported. This paper presents a Matlab simulation platform that has been developed to facilitate the study of characteristic model based adaptive control systems. The simulation platform consists of two interweaving components: for a given continuous-time linear time-invariant plant, represented by a transfer function, and a specified sampling period, the simulation platform calculates a discretized model of the plant, and the corresponding characteristic model, and with a specified set of initial conditions of the characteristic model and its coefficients, along with the specified duration of simulation and reference input, the simulation platform will adaptively tune the coefficients of the characteristic model and calculate the outputs of the plant and the characteristic model. All the data needed for the simulation will be entered through a graphic user interface, which also plots the evolution of the outputs of the plant and the characteristic model as well as the evolution of the coefficients of the characteristic model. The simulation results can also be saved for off line plotting and analysis through the graphic user interface.