Model Reference Adaptive Control with Time-Varying State and Input Constraints

Abstract: This paper presents a model reference adaptive control (MRAC) framework for uncertain linear time-invariant (LTI) systems subject to user-defined, time-varying state and input constraints. The proposed design seamlessly integrates a time-varying barrier Lyapunov function (TVBLF) to enforce state constraints with a time-varying saturation function to handle input limits. These time-varying constraints can be designed as performance functions to shape transient and steady-state behaviors for both state and input. A key contribution is the derivation of a verifiable, offline feasibility condition to check the existence of a valid control policy for a given set of constraints. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first adaptive control methodology to simultaneously handle both time-varying state and input constraints without resorting to online optimization. Simulation results validate the efficacy of the proposed constrained MRAC scheme.