A Novel Augmented Fractional-Order Fuzzy Controller for Enhanced Robustness in Nonlinear and Uncertain Systems with Optimal Actuator Exertion

An appropriate balance between the controller’s performance and its robustness is a complex design challenge. In order to enhance the control system performance, vigorous and rapid variations in controller output are often employed; however, this poses a critical challenge for practical implementations of the control schemes, as it may affect the actuator badly and may reduce its lifetime. To handle this issue, the current work presents an innovative control structure that aims to strike an apt balance between the control output variability while maintaining the desired control performance. The proposed control scheme exploits the abilities of fuzzy logic to cope with uncertainties in the system and along with the use of fractional calculus to enhance the control performance. Further, to evaluate the performance of the proposed improved fractional-order fuzzy controller (IFOFC), extensive simulation studies have been carried out on a multi-input–multi-output nonlinear system for a wide variety of test scenarios. An exhaustive comparative study with an inline state-of-art controller, i.e., fractional-order fuzzy PID (FOFPID) controller has also been carried out on two interesting performance measures. These performance measures include integral of time-weighted absolute error (ITAE) and another measure which corresponds to undesirable variations in the controller output, i.e., integral of the absolute change of torque (IACT). Based on the detailed simulation studies, it was found that the proposed control structure provides a fair balance between controller output aggression and control performance and also completely outperformed the FOFPID controller, even under large parametric variations.