Adaptive Control with Rate-Limited Integral Action for Systems with Matched, Time-Varying Uncertainties

Abstract: This paper considers the problem of controlling a piecewise continuously differentiable system subject to time-varying uncertainties. The uncertainties are decomposed into a time-invariant, linearly-parameterized portion and a time-varying unstructured portion. The former is addressed using conventional model reference adaptive control. The latter is handled using disturbance observer-based control. The objective is to ensure good performance through observer-based disturbance rejection when possible, while preserving the robustness guarantees of adaptive control. A key feature of the observer-based disturbance compensation is a magnitude and rate limit on the integral action that prevents fast fluctuations in the control command due to the observer dynamics.