Modeling and adaptive control of nonlinear dynamical systems using radial basis function network

In this paper, the use of radial basis function network (RBFN) for simultaneous online identification and indirect adaptive control of nonlinear dynamical systems is demonstrated. The motivation of using RBFN comes from the simplicity of its structure and simpler mathematical formulation, which gives it an advantage over multi-layer feed-forward neural network (MLFFNN). Since most processes are nonlinear, the use of conventional proportional-integral-derivative controller is not useful. Most of the time plant’s dynamics information is not available. This creates another limitation on the use of conventional control techniques, which works only if plant’s dynamics information is available. The proposed controller is tested for parameter variations and disturbance effects. Simulation results showed that RBFN is able to capture the unknown dynamics as well as simultaneously able to adaptively control the plant. It is also found to compensate the effects of parameter variations and disturbances. The comparative analysis is also done with MLFFNN in each simulation example, and it is found that performance of RBFN is better than that of MLFFNN.