Multivariable model reference adaptive control with application to flight control

The problem of multivariable model reference adaptive control and its application to flight control were discussed. A model reference adaptive control scheme was proposed for multivariable linear time-invariant systems with arbitrary relative degrees. Based on the SDU factorization, it is only required that the signs of the leading principal minors of the high frequency gain matrix are known, which considerably relaxes the restrictions on the high frequency gain matrix. By constructing a proper Lyapunov function, it is proved that the closed-loop system is globally stable and the tracking error converges to zero asymptotically. The proposed scheme is illustrated to be effective though an application to a flight control problem.