Robustness of discrete-time direct adaptive controllers

The problem of preserving stability of discrete-time adaptive controllers in spite of reduced-order modeling and output disturbances is addressed in this paper. Conditions for global stability (convergence of the tracking error with bounded signals) are derived for a discrete-time pole-zero placement adaptive controller where the parameter estimator is modified in terms of normalized signals. Following an input-output perpective, the overall system is decomposed into two subsystems reflecting the parameter estimation and modeling errors, respectively, and its stability is studied using the sector stability and passivity theorems. First the analysis is carried for the class of disturbances and reference inputs that are either decaying or can be exactly hulled by a linear controller of the chosen structure. In this L2-framework, it is shown that the only substantive assumption to assure stability is the existence of a linear controller such that the closed-loop transfer function verifies certain conicity conditions. The convergence speed and alertness properties of various parameter adaptation algorithms regarding this condition are discussed. The results are further extended to a broader class of disturbances and reference inputs.