Robust adaptive control of a flexible transmission system using multiple models

An application of the multiple models adaptive control based on switching a nd tuning to a flexible transmission system will be presented. This approac h has been considered in order to assure high control performance in the pr esence of large load variation on the system. The advantages of the multipl e models adaptive control system with respect to the classical adaptive con trol will be illustrated via the experimental results. It will also be show n that the robustness of the adaptive control system can be improved with t he appropriate shaping of a sensitivity function. The use of a recently dev eloped parameter estimation algorithm based on the minimization of the clos ed-loop output error in the multiple models scheme will also improve the pe rformance of the system in the tuning phase and will make the adaptation al gorithm insensitive to unmodeled output disturbances.