Conventional and adaptive strategies applied to DC motor control using microcontroller PIC18F4520

In this paper strategies to control the speed of a generic DC motor system are discussed. They range from the conventional, like PID and state-feedback, to reference model adaptive algorithms such as MRAC, VS-MRAC and DMARC. The goal of this study is to determine the best control strategy for high-performance applications regarding to stability, robustness and optimal controller effort. In theory and sometimes in practice, all these control strategies proof themselves reliable, however, in heavy-duty set-point references the application requires high performance of the controller under disturbances, unmodeled dynamics and variable speed reference conditions. The use of appropriate control strategies can highly contribute to this purpose. To support the conclusions, the control strategies have been embedded in a microcontroller PIC18F4520 and applied to a test motor in order to obtain experimental results.