Novel Asynchronous Activation of the Bio-Inspired Adaptive Tuning in the Speed Controller: Study Case in DC Motors

The fusion of bio-inspired algorithms into online controller tuning (adaptive controller tuning) is one of the main topics in Intelligent Control. One crucial issue is to reduce the times that the tuning process performs over time. In this work, a novel Asynchronous Adaptive Controller Tuning (AACT) approach is proposed to reduce the number of tuning process activations, and hence, this promotes resource savings in the overall computational cost for the tuning process. In this approach, an event function is designed to determine the control parameter update where the use of identification and predictive stages set the current control parameters. Furthermore, an elitist initialization in the differential evolution algorithm is also incorporated for solving the optimization problems at each stage. The speed regulation of the DC motor under disturbances is the study case in the ACCT approach. Comparative results with state-of-the-art bio-inspired algorithms in control tuning reveal in the AACT approach that the elitist initialization in differential evolution notably benefits the controller performance. Moreover, the comparative results with the Synchronous Adaptive Controller Tuning (SACT) approach show that the proposal reduces 61% the tuning process computation frequency with a similar speed regulation performance when disturbances appear.