Empirical studies of an MRAC algorithm with minimal controller synthesis

An adaptive control algorithm based upon a well-known model reference adaptive control (MRAC) strategy is described. The main feature of this new algorithm is that minimal synthesis is required to implement the strategy—hence the appellation minimal controller synthesis (MCS). Specifically, no plant model is required (apart from a knowledge of the state dimension) and no controller gains have to be calculated. We also present two implementation studies and one simulation study of the MCS strategy to demonstrate the robustness and excellence of control that can be achieved. Robustness proofs are left to sequels of this paper.