Problem: Controlling nonlinearly parameterized systems with unknown disturbances remains challenging because classical adaptive approaches rely on separation-of-variables and reparameterization techniques, leading to increased parameter dimensions, conservative stability bounds, and implementation complexity. Objective: This paper develops a data-driven predictive fuzzy adaptive control (DD-PFAC) framework that eliminates the need for separation techniques while achieving superior tracking performance and formally certified stability. Novelty: The key innovation is a two-layer architecture. Layer 1 provides direct fuzzy approximation of composite nonlinear functions (system dynamics plus disturbance bound) without parameter reparameterization, reducing parameter complexity from O(qn) to O(nN). Layer 2 employs Hankel matrix-based predictive optimization to adaptively tune both control gains ci(k) and adaptation rates γi(k) online using 80–150 recent input–output samples. Methodology: A Lyapunov function augmented with a prediction-error term is used to prove uniform ultimate boundedness of all closed-loop signals. A projection-based recursive least-squares algorithm updates the gain parameters online while guaranteeing ci(k)≥cmin>0 at all times. Results: Comparative simulations demonstrate 31.4% reduction in integral square error, 27.8% reduction in mean absolute error, and 37.4% reduction in steady-state error versus traditional adaptive fuzzy control. A four-group ablation study confirms that adaptive gain scheduling contributes 27.7% and predictive compensation contributes 6.5% to the total MAE improvement. Robustness tests validate consistent 28–32% performance advantage across sinusoidal, pulse, step, and large-disturbance scenarios.
Yue et al. (Sat,) studied this question.