Dual-Rate Data-Driven Virtual Reference Feedback Tuning: Improvement in Fast-Tracking Performance and Ripple-Free Design

In this study, a data-driven design method is proposed for a dual-rate system, where the sampling interval of a plant output is restricted and is an integer multiple of the holding interval of a control input. In our proposed method, single-rate virtual reference feedback tuning (S-VRFT), where the holding interval is the same as the sampling interval, is extended to the dual-rate virtual reference feedback tuning (D-VRFT) system. In D-VRFT, a controller is decided using a set of input/output data used in S-VRFT, and it is easy to extend S-VRFT to D-VRFT and implement D-VRFT. In this study, intersample oscillations caused in such a dual-rate control system is prevented because a weighting filter is introduced for penalizing the control input deviation between the sampling instants. The filter is designed as an integrator for weighting the low-frequency domain. The improvement in fast-tracking performance as well as the ripple-free property are demonstrated through both the numerical and experimental results.