Application of active adaptive control to an unstable mechanical plant

The application of direct active adaptive control (DAAC) for the roll angle control problem of a vertical take-off airplane is considered for a laboratory pilot-version of the plant. Adaptive real-time control is applied to the experimental setup. The peculiarities of the controlled system are that the considered plant is unstable (double integral) and the exact description is given by a nonlinear model. Moreover, the discrete-time model of the plant has nonminimum phase characteristics and an actuator restriction is necessary. It is shown that DAAC provides improved control quality in comparison with standard adaptive control schemes based on the certainty equivalence (CE) assumption. The results of the real-time adaptive control for the considered plant shows the efficiency and possibility for practical application of this direct active adaptive control approach.<>