Abstract
Classical discrete-time adaptive controllers provide asymptotic stabilization and tracking; neither exponential stabilization nor a bounded noise gain is typically proven. In our recent work, it is shown, in both the pole placement stability setting and the first-order one-step-ahead tracking setting, that if the original, ideal, projection algorithm is used (subject to the common assumption that the plant parameters lie in a convex, compact set and that the parameter estimates are restricted to that set) as part of the adaptive controller, then a linear-like convolution bound on the closed-loop behaviour can be proven; this immediately confers exponential stability and a bounded noise gain, and it can be leveraged to provide tolerance to unmodelled dynamics and plant parameter variation. In this paper, we solve the much harder problem of adaptive tracking; under classical assumptions on the set of unmodelled parameters, including the requirement that the plant be minimum phase, we are able to prove not only the linear-like properties discussed above, but also very desirable bounds on the tracking performance. We achieve this by using a modified version of the ideal projection algorithm, termed as vigilant estimator: it is equally alert when the plant state is large or small and is turned off when it is clear that the disturbance is overwhelming the estimation process.