Delay Estimation and Predictive Control of Uncertain Systems With Input Delay: Application to a DC Motor

It is well known that standard predictive techniques are not very robust to parameter uncertainties and to external disturbances. Furthermore, they require the exact knowledge of the delay. In practice, these constraints are rarely satisfied. In this paper, solutions are presented to allow the use of predictive control in the presence of external disturbances, parameter uncertainties, and an unknown input delay. First, a recent predictive control method developed to attenuate the effect of external disturbances is shown to be also robust to parameter uncertainties. In addition, a delay estimator is presented to estimate unknown time-varying delays. Theoretical results are widely illustrated through experimental tests on a dc motor.