Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 25 (2012) 1289–1297

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Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/engappai

Real time adaptive nonlinear model inversion control of a twin rotor MIMO
system using neural networks
A. Rahideh a,b, A.H. Bajodah c, M.H. Shaheed b,n
a
School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Shiraz University of Technology, Shiraz, Iran
b
School of Engineering and Materials Science, Queen Mary University of London, London E1 4NS, UK
c
King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

a r t i c l e i n f o abstract

Article history: This paper investigates the development and experimental implementation of an adaptive dynamic
Received 9 May 2011 nonlinear model inversion control law for a Twin Rotor MIMO System (TRMS) using artificial neural
Received in revised form networks. The TRMS is a highly nonlinear aerodynamic test rig with complex cross-coupled dynamics
5 October 2011
and therefore represents the control challenges of modern air vehicles. A highly nonlinear 1DOF
Accepted 29 December 2011
mathematical model of the TRMS is considered in this study and a nonlinear inverse model is
Available online 28 January 2012
developed for the pitch channel of the system. An adaptive neural network element is integrated
Keywords: thereafter with the feedback control system to compensate for model inversion errors. The proposed
Inverse-control on-line learning algorithm updates the weights and biases of the neural network using the error
Neural networks
between the set-point and the real output. The real-time response of the method shows a satisfactory
Nonlinear system
tracking performance in the presence of inversion errors caused by model uncertainty. The approach is
On-line learning
Real-time therefore deemed to be suitable to apply real-time to other nonlinear systems with necessary
modifications.
& 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction developed in simulation environment and the performance of

Control of systems such as helicopters and helicopter like
unmanned aerial vehicles has always been a challenging issue due
to their severe nonlinearity and cross-coupled dynamics between
axes (Kumar et al., 2009; Rahideh et al., 2008; Ahmad et al., 2002,
2003). However, such systems possess remarkable advantages in
narrow environment and are therefore widely used in a variety of
military and civilian purposes, for example: surveillance; battle
field operations; forest fire detection; oil pipeline inspections;
high voltage lines failure detection; and air sea rescue operations
(Ahmad et al., 2002; Lara et al., 2010; Marconi and Naldi, 2008).
The ongoing demand for more and more sophistication in all
these applications implies that efficient control concepts need to
be developed and implemented addressing their nonlinearities
and other related uncertainties. Over the recent years a number of
design and control methodologies have been proposed and
developed for helicopters, UAVs and similar systems (Peng
et al., 2009; Gans et al., 2009; Lee and Tsai, 2010; Yang and
Hsu, 2009; Tee, 2008). Some of these techniques are only
n
Corresponding author. Tel.:þ 44 20 7882 3774; fax: þ44 20 7882 3390.
E-mail address: m.h.shaheed@qmul.ac.uk (M.H. Shaheed).
some of them is moderate.
Among various control concepts that exist today, dynamic
inversion (Slotine and Li, 1991) is an interesting feedback linear-
ization control system design methodology that continues to find
a wide acceptance in the control engineering community, with
many applications in the field of flight control, robotics and hard
disc drive manufacturing process (Enns et al., 1994; Behera et al.,
1996; Rigney et al., 2010). The aim of dynamic inversion is to
cancel the nonlinearity of the plant to be controlled by construct-
ing its inverse mapping and using it in the control law. This makes
it feasible to employ linear control system tools for achieving the
desired control objectives. However, obtaining inverse mathema-
tical model equations is not generally straightforward, and can be
difficult for complex nonlinear systems. To make dynamic inver-
sion of a nonlinear plant feasible, several approximations and
assumptions may have to be adopted. Among those are fixed
Jacobian linearization and time scale separation (Prasad and Lipp,
1993).
Due to various attractive features such as learning, adaptation
and the ability to nonlinear input output mapping, over the years,
different forms of neural networks have been successfully used in
nonlinear modelling and control of various systems including
robotic manipulators, UAVs, automobiles and power control sys-
tems (Ramon, et al., 2009; Thampatty et al., 2011; Shaheed, 2005;

0952-1976/$ - see front matter & 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.engappai.2011.12.006
1290 A. Rahideh et al. / Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 25 (2012) 1289–1297
Nomenclature
Bmr Rotor damping coefficient of the main motor
Eav Electromotive force of the main motor
Fv Aerodynamic force produced by the main rotor
iav Armature current of the main motor
Jmr Rotor moment of inertia of the main motor
Jv Moment of inertia about horizontal axis
kav , ktv Constants
kfvp, kfvn Positive constants
Lav Armature inductance of the main motor
lb Length of the counter-weight beam
lcb Distance between the counterweight and the joint
lm Length of the main part of the beam
lt Length of the tail part of the beam
mb Mass of the counter-weight beam
Shital et al., 2010; Zhai and Yu, 2009). In the case of model
inversion control, neural network training of the plant input–
output data is being utilised to perform dynamic inversion. Both
on-line (Kim and Calise, 1997) and off-line (Behera et al., 1996)
training algorithms are reported in the dynamic inversion litera-
ture. Kim and Calise (1997) have suggested off-line training of
neural networks using a nominal mathematical model, which
provides an approximate inversion that can accommodate the
total flight envelope. However in real-time situation, on-line
training of neural networks is required to compensate for inver-
sion error. Behera et al. (1996) have presented a new control
scheme based on inversion of a feed-forward neural model of a
robot arm.
Another source of model inversion inaccuracy occurs due to
plant model uncertainty. Since inversion is model based, high-
fidelity plant modelling is needed. It is well known that model
inversion control is sensitive to the accuracy of the inversion
signal, and that inexact inversion can deteriorate the performance
of the feedback control system. For example, to achieve a
physically realisable commanded change in aircraft attitude, the
corresponding moments must be determined very accurately
(Ostroff and Bacon, 1999). Other difficulties encountered when
performing model inversion are related to the nature of plant
itself. For example, nonminimum phase plants like flexible
structures cause instability of the inversion process, i.e., the
required control inputs are unbounded for bounded desired plant
trajectories (Devasia et al., 1996). Researchers have suggested
augmenting adaptive neural network based compensators with
feedback control system to compensate for the inversion errors
effect on the closed loop system, (Yesildirek and Lewis, 1995).
This type of augmentation to model inversion control has been
reported abundantly in the literature. For instance, dynamic
inversion nonlinear control system designs were proposed for
fixed (Kim and Calise, 1997) and rotary (Lee et al., 2005) wing
aircraft models, and adaptive neural network elements were
augmented to robustify the command augmentation systems
against model inversion errors. The methodology was also applied
to enhance flying quality characteristics of tilt-rotor airplanes
(Rysdyk and Calise, 1999, 2005). Other aerospace applications
include deep-space spacecraft formation flying (Gurfil et al., 2002)
and airship vehicle flight (Park et al., 2003). An extension of the
methodology was made to consider the effects of actuator
characteristics and limitations on the adaptation process, such
as actuator displacement and/or rate limits, actuator dynamics
and time delay (Johnson and Calise, 2003; Johnson and Kannan,
2005). Applications in reusable launch vehicles and helicopters
mcb Mass of the counter-weight
mm Mass of the main part of the beam
mmr Mass of the main motor
mms Mass of the main shield
mt Mass of the tail part of the beam
mtr Mass of the tail motor
mts Mass of the tail shield
Rav Armature resistance of the main motor
Tev Electromagnetic torque of the main motor
Tfric,v Friction torque in vertical plane
TLv Load torque of the main motor
Vv Voltage control input of the vertical channel
av Pitch angle of the TRMS beam
jv Magnetic flux of the main motor
ov Rotational velocity of the main rotor
Ov Angular velocity of the TRMS beam in vertical plane
were provided. Other extensions were made to consider struc-
tural load limits (Sahani and Horn, 2006) and the output feedback
control problem (Hovakimyan et al., 1999).
Linear control techniques may show satisfactory performance
for those nonlinear systems with negligible nonlinearity and/or
always working around a fixed operating point. For those highly
nonlinear systems with continuously varying operating points,
linear control approaches either fail to control the system or even
if the control system remains stable, it may not be optimal.
Therefore to optimally control highly nonlinear unmanned aerial
vehicles in terms of, for instance, manoeuvrability and/or fuel
efficiency, nonlinear adaptive and/or optimal control techniques
should be explored.
In this investigation a nonlinear model inversion based control
methodology is developed and implemented in real-time on a
TRMS, which resembles the dynamics of a helicopter. A detailed
description of the flying machine experimental test-bed is
included in Section 2. The model inversion process and the
control methodology developed and implemented are illustrated
in Section 3. The results and conclusion are presented in Sections
4 and 5, respectively. Section 4 consists of two subsections, one
for the model validation to show the accuracy of the dynamic
model developed and the other presents the response of the
proposed control method. This investigation is the experimental
version of the previously published research by the same authors
(Rahideh et al., 2007) in which the adaptive nonlinear model
inversion control method has only been verified in simulation.
2. TRMS
The TRMS is a laboratory platform designed for control
experiments by Feedback Instruments Ltd (Feedback, 1998). In
certain aspects, its behaviour resembles the dynamics of a
helicopter (Ahmad et al., 2003; Rahideh et al., 2008). For example,
it possesses a strong cross-couplings between the collective
(main) and tail rotors. The TRMS is characterised by its complex
and highly nonlinear dynamics. Some of its states and outputs are
also inaccessible for measurements. All these typify TRMS as a
challenging engineering problem. The control objective is to make
the beam of the TRMS tracks a predetermine trajectory. Fig. 1
shows the TRMS considered in this investigation. The dynamic
model as supplied by the manufacturer has been improved in this
study and the electric motors are modelled with respect to the
corresponding equations. The TRMS possesses two permanent
magnet DC motors; one for the main and the other for the tail
 A. Rahideh et al. / Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 25 (2012) 1289–1297 1291

−v Vertical plane

Tail rotor lt
lm
Free beam
h
g (mtr + mts ) Fv (v)
Tail rotor mt g
lcb Main rotor
Counter lb − lcb mm g
balance gmb
g (mmr + mms )
beam gmcb

Main rotor TRMS 33-220

−v
Fig. 3. Gravity and propulsive forces in the vertical plane.

Tfric,v

Fig. 1. Twin rotor MIMO system.

Lav Rav
Ωv
iav +
+

Vv N Eav S

_ _
av

Fig. 4. Profile of the friction torque.

Fig. 2. Circuit diagram of a DC motor. where

m 
t
propelling. The motors are identical with different mechanical A¼ þmtr þ mts lt
2
loads. The mathematical model of the main motor (Rahideh et al., m 
m
B¼ þ mmr þ mms lm
2008), as shown in Fig. 2, is presented in: 2
m 
b
diav 1 C¼ l þ mcb lcb
¼ ðV v Eav Rav iav Þ ð1Þ 2 b
dt Lav (
kf vp 9ov 9ov for ov Z 0
F v ðov Þ ¼ ð7Þ
Eav ¼ kav fv ov ð2Þ kf vn 9ov 9ov for ov o 0

dov 1
¼ ðT ev T Lv Bmr ov Þ
dt J mr
T ev ¼ kav fv iav
T Lv ¼ ktv 9ov 9ov
where Vv is the voltage control input of the vertical channel, Eav,
Rav, Lav and iav are, respectively, the electromotive force, armature
resistance, armature inductance and armature current of the main
motor, kav and ktv are constants, jv is the magnetic flux, ov is the
rotational velocity, Tev is the electromagnetic torque, TLv is the
load torque, Jmr is the rotor moment of inertia and Bmr is the rotor
damping coefficient all of the main motor.
The mathematical model of the remaining parts of the system
in vertical plane is described in (6) to (8) (see Fig. 3).
In (6) the first term denotes the torque of the propulsive force
due to the main rotor, the second term refers to the torque of the
friction force, and the torque of gravity force is shown in the third
term
dOv lm F v ðov ÞT f ric,v þ g ½ðABÞcos av C sin av 
¼ ð6Þ
dt Jv
ð3Þ dav
¼ Ov ð8Þ
dt
ð4Þ where Fv is the aerodynamic force produced by the main rotor, mt,
mtr, mts, mm, mmr, mms, mb and mcb are, respectively, the mass of
ð5Þ the tail part of the beam, tail motor, tail shield, main part of the
beam, main motor, main shield, counter-weight beam and coun-
ter-weight, lt, lm and lb are, respectively, the length of the tail part
of the beam, main part of the beam and counter-weight beam, lcb
is the distance between the counterweight and the joint, av is the
pitch angle of the TRMS beam, Ov is the angular velocity of the
TRMS beam in the vertical plane, Jv is the moment of inertia about
horizontal axis, Tfric,v is the friction torque in vertical plane and
kfvp and kfvn are two positive constants.
Fig. 4 shows the profile of the friction torque that covers
viscous, coulomb and static frictions. It is worth noting that there
are differences between the input voltage levels in the MATLAB/
Simulink environment and the motor terminal voltages, and that
the relationship between these two sets of values is slightly
nonlinear. For more details on the one degree of freedom
(1DOF) TRMS model including how the parameters in Eqs. (1)–(8)
have been obtained see (Rahideh et al., 2008).
1292 A. Rahideh et al. / Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 25 (2012) 1289–1297

3. Methodology interface circuit should act as a simple gain to convert the

The proposed control methodology comprises three steps:
(i) model inversion (ii) design of an open-loop model inversion
control process and (iii) development of a closed-loop model
inversion control approach with a neural network based
compensator.
3.1. Model inversion
An accurate inverted model is a prerequisite to obtain satis-
factory model inversion based control performance. The model
inversion process of the TRMS is presented in this section. The
input to the inverted model is the pitch angle and the output is
the main motor voltage. The model is inverted in three phases:
first, the propulsive force of the main rotor is calculated, then the
speed of the motor is derived and finally, the terminal voltage of
the main motor is calculated. The propulsive force of the main
motor is given by
_ v þT
Jv O f ric,v g½ðABÞcos av C sin av 
F v ðov Þ ¼
lm
electronic signals coming from the controller (PC) to a corre-
sponding level of voltage to supply the motor terminal; however
in practice, it shows a slight nonlinear behaviour. Instead of using
a constant gain to represent the inverted model of the interface
circuit, the relationship shown in Fig. 5 is used. Fig. 6 depicts
the block diagram of the overall nonlinear inverted model of the
system, which consists of four subsystems: TRMS dynamics
inversion; propeller inversion; motor inversion; and interface
inversion.
3.2. Open loop model inversion control
Fig. 7 shows the open loop model inversion control strategy for
the TRMS. The input to the inverted model is the desired value of
the pitch angle, av,ref, its output (i.e. the input to the plant) is the
voltage of the main rotor, Uv, and the output of the plant is the
pitch angle, av.
3.3. Closed loop model inversion control with a NN based
ð9Þ compensator

2 Fig. 8 shows the complete block diagram of the developed

_v¼ d av
O ð10Þ adaptive nonlinear model inversion control approach using neural
dt 2
networks. It is evident from Fig. 8 that the input signal to the
The speed of the motor is then found to be
inverted model is the summation of reference signal, the output
8 rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
> jF v ðov Þj of the PD controller and the output of adaptive NN based
>
> if F v ðov Þ Z 0
< kf vp compensator.
ov ¼ rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi ð11Þ Among various neural network architectures, single hidden
>
>
>  jF vkðov Þj if F v ðov Þ o 0
: layer perceptron neural networks are proven to be universal
f vn

approximators as they can approximate any smooth nonlinear

Now it is possible to calculate the terminal voltage of the main
motor in accordance to speed of the propeller using Eqs. (1)–(5).
Fig. 5 shows the model of the interface circuit (first subsystem
from right in Fig. 6). The interface circuit is a part of data
acquisition card and connects the PC to the TRMS. Ideally, this
2.5
function of certain arbitrary accuracy, given a sufficient number
of hidden layer neurons and input information. As such, a single
hidden-layer NN is trained online to cancel out the model error
due to uncertainty and/or simplification with feedback. Fig. 9
shows the structure of the single hidden-layer NN used in this
case. The neural network has an input layer consists of three
inputs; a hidden layer consists of 10 neurons and a single output.

2
v,ref Model Uv Real v
1.5 Inversion TRMS
1
Fig. 7. Open loop model inversion control strategy.
0.5
Uv
Vv

0 v,ref Model Real

Σ v
Inversion TRMS
−0.5

−1
NN
−1.5 Compensator
PD
−2
Adaptation
−2.5 Law
−25 −20 −15 −10 −5 0 5 10 15 20 25
_
Uv +

Fig. 5. Interface circuit model (relationship between Uv and Vv). Fig. 8. Total block diagram of the adaptive nonlinear model inversion control.

TRMS
v Fv(v) Propeller v Motor Vv Interface Uv
Dynamics
Inversion Inversion Inversion Inversion

Fig. 6. Block diagram of the overall nonlinear inverted model.

 A. Rahideh et al. / Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 25 (2012) 1289–1297 1293

V network should be trained to obtain its parameters, i.e. the

1 W weights and biases. In this investigation, an online training
1 procedure is employed to update the weights/biases of the neural
v(t) network with the objective to minimise the tracking error. It is
Σ f1 shown that the neural network weights/biases can be updated
according to the following equations (Kim and Calise, 1997):
_ ¼ ½ðFF0 VT XÞr T þ k:e:WGW
W ð20Þ
Σ f2 Σ vad (t)
v(t−1)
V_ ¼ GV ½XrT W T F0 þ k:e:V ð21Þ
where GW and GV are the learning rates, and k 40 guarantees that
the reference model tracking error (e) and neural network
weights are uniformly bounded
v(t−2) " #
av,ref av
Σ f10 e¼ _ ð22Þ
a v,ref a_ v
2 3
Input Layer Hidden Layer Output Layer 0 0  0
6 @f 1 ðz1 Þ 7
6 @z1 0  0 7
6 7
Fig. 9. Structure of the single hidden-layer NN. 6 @f 2 ðz2 Þ 7
F ¼6
0 0 ^ 7 ð23Þ
6 @z2 7
6 ^ & 0 7
The inputs to the network are the pitch angle of the beam at the 6 7
4 @f 10 10
ðz Þ
5
current time, av(t), pitch angle of the beam at the previous time, 0  0 @z10
av(t  1), and pitch angle of the beam at two sample before,
av(t  2) and the output is the adaptive voltage vad. The activation r ¼ ðeT PBÞT ð24Þ
functions in the hidden layer are sigmoid and in the output layer,
a pure linear activation function is used. where P is the solution of the following Lyapunov equation
The relationship between the inputs and output can be AT P þ PAþ Q ¼ 0 ð25Þ
expressed as
! for any positive definite Q 40. A and B are the tracking error
X
10 X
3
dynamics matrices
vad ¼ bw þ wj f j bv,j þ vi,j xi ¼ W T FðVT XÞ ð12Þ
 
j¼1 i¼1 0
B¼ ð26Þ
where input vector, weights and biases matrices and activation 1
functions can be defined as " #
2 3 0 1
1 A¼ : ð27Þ
6 7 kp kd
6 x1 7
X¼6 7
6 x2 7 ð13Þ
4 5
x3

4. Results
xi ¼ av ðti þ1Þ i ¼ 1,2,3 ð14Þ
2 3 The responses of the 1DOF inverse model and the proposed
bw
6 7 nonlinear adaptive controller are presented in this section.
6 w1 7
W ¼6
6 ^ 7
7 ð15Þ
4 5 4.1. Model validation
w10
2 3 The 1DOF dynamic model of the TRMS has been tested with
bv,1 bv,2  bv,10 various input signals in order to show its accuracy. Figs. 10–12
6 7
6 v1,1 v1,2  v1,10 7 depict the responses of the model to three different types of input
V¼6
6 ^
7 ð16Þ
4 ^ & ^ 7 5 signals compared to that of the real TRMS. As seen in the figures,
v3,1 v3,2  v3,10 in all cases the model responses closely match those of the
real TRMS.
1
f j ðzj Þ ¼ , j ¼ 12,    ,10 ð17Þ
1 þ eaj zj 4.2. Controller response

X
3
In this section the experimental results of the proposed non-
zj ¼ bv,j þ vi,j xi , j ¼ 1,2,    ,10 ð18Þ
i¼1 linear adaptive controller are presented. More details on nonlinear
model accuracy of the TRMS can be found in (Rahideh et al., 2008).
2 3
1 The real TRMS is connected to a computer by a fast interface
6 7 circuit board-PCL-812. The PCL-812PG can be considered a high
6 f 1 ðz1 Þ 7
F ¼6
6
7
7 ð19Þ performance, high speed, multi-function data acquisition card
4 ^ 5
for IBM PC/XT/AT and compatible computers from Advantech Co.
f 10 ðz10 Þ
The responses of the control system, as experimentally obtained
After defining the neural network structure, i.e. the number of using a sampling time of 0.001 s, are shown in Figs. 13–18. The
layers and the number of neurons in each layer, the neural responses of the proposed NN-based adaptive controller and a PID
1294 A. Rahideh et al. / Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 25 (2012) 1289–1297

1
Real TRMS 101
PSD of real TRMS
0.8 Model
100 PSD of the model

0.6 10−1
Pitch angle (rad)

10−2

Magnitude
0.4
10−3
0.2
10−4
0
10−5
−0.2
10−6
−0.4 10−7
0 20 40 60 80 100 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
time (sec) Frequency (Hz)

Fig. 10. Pitch angle response to a sine wave input with frequency 0.02 Hz and amplitude 1.5 V. (a) Time domain comparison; (b) frequency domain comparison.

0.6
Real TRMS 100
0.5 Model PSD of real TRMS
PSD of the model
10−1
0.4
0.3 10−2
Pitch angle (rad)

Magnitude

0.2 10−3
0.1
10−4
0
10−5
−0.1
−0.2 10−6

−0.3 10−7
0 10 20 30 40 50 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
time (sec) Frequency (Hz)

Fig. 11. Pitch angle response to a sine wave input with frequency 0.1 Hz and amplitude 1 V. (a) Time domain comparison; (b) frequency domain comparison (PSD).

0.8 100
Real TRMS PSD of real TRMS
Model PSD of the model
0.6 10−1

0.4 10−2
Pitch angle (rad)

Magnitude

0.2 10−3

0
10−4
−0.2
10−5
−0.4
10−6
0 10 20 30 40 50 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
time (sec) Frequency (Hz)

Fig. 12. Pitch angle response to a square wave input with frequency 0.1 Hz and amplitude 1 V. (a) Time domain comparison; (b) frequency domain comparison (PSD).

controller to a sine wave reference signal with an amplitude
of 0.2 are depicted in Fig. 13(a). The power spectral density
results corresponding to the time domain responses shown in
Fig. 13(a) are depicted in Fig. 13(b). It is demonstrated from both
the time domain and frequency domain point of view that the
controller is able to follow the reference closely. Fig. 14 also
presents the response of the controller to a sine wave signal but
with an initial value of 0.1 rad. Satisfactory control performance is
also confirmed here. Figs. 15 and 16 show the controller responses
to a sine wave signal with an amplitude of 0.4 but with and
without an initial value of 0.2, respectively. In Fig. 15 the results of
the proposed NN-based adaptive controller are compared to those
obtained from the PID controller. To validate the reliability and
accuracy of the controller further, it is tested with a square wave
reference signal and the responses are presented and compared
with those from the PID controller in Fig. 17. Finally, Fig. 18
 A. Rahideh et al. / Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 25 (2012) 1289–1297 1295

0.25 100
Reference Reference
0.2 Adaptive NN Adaptive NN
−1
PID 10 PID
0.15
0.1 10−2
Pitch angle (rad)

0.05

Magnitude
10−3
0
−0.05 10−4

−0.1 10−5
−0.15
10−6
−0.2
−0.25 10−7
0 20 40 60 80 100 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
time (sec) Frequency (Hz)

Fig. 13. Response of the NN-based adaptive controller and the PID controller to a sine wave reference signal with amplitude 0.2. (a) Time domain comparison;
(b) frequency domain comparison (PSD).

0.25 100
Reference Reference
0.2 Adaptive NN Adaptive NN
10−1
0.15
0.1 10−2
Pitch angle (rad)

0.05
Magnitude

10−3
0
10−4
−0.05
−0.1 10−5
−0.15
10−6
−0.2
−0.25 10−7
0 20 40 60 80 100 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
time (sec) Frequency (Hz)

Fig. 14. Response of the NN-based adaptive controller to a sine wave reference signal with amplitude 0.2 and initial value. (a) Time domain comparison; (b) frequency
domain comparison (PSD).

0.5 101
Reference Reference
0.4 Adaptive NN Adaptive NN
100 PID
PID
0.3
10−1
Pitch angle (rad)

0.2
10−2
Magnitude

0.1
10−3
0
−0.1 10−4

−0.2 10−5
−0.3 10−6
−0.4 10−7
0 20 40 60 80 100 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
time (sec) Frequency (Hz)
Fig. 15. Response of the NN-based adaptive controller and the PID controller to a sine wave reference signal with amplitude 0.4. (a) Time domain comparison;
(b) frequency domain comparison (PSD).
1296 A. Rahideh et al. / Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 25 (2012) 1289–1297

0.5 101
Reference Reference
0.4 Adaptive NN Adaptive NN
100
0.3
0.2 10−1
Pitch angle (rad)

Magnitude
0.1
10−2
0
−0.1 10−3

−0.2 10−4
−0.3
10−5
−0.4
−0.5 10−6
0 20 40 60 80 100 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
time (sec) Frequency (Hz)

Fig. 16. Response of the NN-based adaptive controller to a sine wave reference signal with amplitude 0.4 and initial value. (a) Time domain comparison; (b) frequency
domain comparison (PSD).

101
Reference
0.6 Adaptive NN
0
10 PID

0.4
10−1
Pitch angle (rad)

Magnitude

0.2 10−2

0 10−3

−0.2
Reference 10−4
Adaptive NN
PID
10−5
−0.4
10−6
0 20 40 60 80 100 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
time (sec) Frequency (Hz)

Fig. 17. Response of the NN-based adaptive controller and the PID controller to a square wave reference signal with amplitude 0.4. (a) Time domain comparison;
(b) frequency domain comparison (PSD).

0.5 101
Reference
0.4 Adaptive NN
0
10
0.3
0.2 10−1
Pitch angle (rad)

0.1
Magnitude

10−2
0
−0.1 10−3

−0.2 10−4
−0.3 Reference
Adaptive NN 10−5
−0.4
−0.5 10−6
0 20 40 60 80 100 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
time (sec) Frequency (Hz)

Fig. 18. Response of the NN-based adaptive controller to a square wave reference signal with amplitude 0.4 and initial value. (a) Time domain comparison; (b) frequency
domain comparison (PSD).
 A. Rahideh et al. / Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 25 (2012) 1289–1297
depicts the response of the developed method to a square wave
reference with an initial value of 0.2. In all cases the proposed
controller shows satisfactory results and outperforms the PID
controller in terms of transient and steady state performance. As
evident from the results, the PID controller suffers from consider-
able overshoot, which may not be acceptable in some unmanned
aerial vehicles with desired agility and manoeuvrability.
5. Conclusion
In this investigation, a real-time adaptive model inversion
control approach has been developed and implemented on a
TRMS in terms of 1DOF. An accurate dynamic model has been
extracted and a nonlinear inverted model has been developed
accordingly. In order to eliminate the inversion error an adaptive
neural network based compensator has been designed and added
to the control system. Results show that the model based
controller performance in tracking the trajectories of the pitch
angle of the beam is very satisfactory in terms of transient and
steady state criteria. The developed approach can be applied to
control any nonlinear aerodynamic system with little or no
modifications to achieve satisfactory control performance pro-
vided that an invertible dynamic model of the system is available.
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