Adaptive robust torque control of electric load simulator with strong position coupling disturbance

Electric load simulator (ELS) is an important equipment to exert aerodynamic load to actuation system according to flight condition. The key issue of ELS is how to eliminate the influence of extra torque caused by actuation system, parametric uncertainties and uncertain nonlinearities. In order to overcome these difficulties, this paper proposes a powerful model-based adaptive robust torque control (ARTC) algorithm which transfers external disturbance elimination problem to a performance-oriented problem under uncertainties and nonlinearities. A discontinuous projection-based online parameter adaptation is employed to reduce the effect of various parameter uncertainties. Instead of discontinuous friction model, a continuous friction model based on smooth shape function is applied for friction compensation. The estimated velocity of actuator is utilized in ARTC controller for eliminating extra torque. The backstepping design via adaptive robust control Lyapunov function is employed to construct ARTC control law for ELS. Extensive comparative results indicate that the proposed ARTC controller is effective to achieve a guaranteed transient as well as final tracking accuracy in the presence of both parametric uncertainties and uncertain nonlinearities.