Concepts, methods and techniques in adaptive control

Abstract

This tutorial paper looks back at almost 50 years of adaptive control trying to establish how much more we need to be able to offer the industrial community an adaptive controller which will be used and referred to with the same ease as existing PID controllers. Since the first commercial adaptive controller, significant progress in the design and analysis of these controllers has been achieved. Various forms of adaptive controllers are now readily available targeting a significant range of industries from process to aerospace. A general overview of adaptive control will allow the reader to place on the map several industrial architectures for such controllers, all with the aim of bridging the gap between academic and industrial views of the topic. Such a presentation of design and analysis tools currently opens a more philosophical question "Has the critical mass in adaptive control been reached?".