Constant Reference Tracking in Data-driven Control

Although the data-driven control design techniques have gotten attention recently, few results address the tracking problem using data-based control formulations. Considering this, this paper presents a data-driven control method to drive the output of a system to its desired constant reference without using any model knowledge. To this end, first, this paper shows how to take the integral action into account for the data-driven control design for the reference tracking problem. Second, a closed-loop representation of the data-driven tracking controller with integral action is derived. Then, based on the representation, linear matrix inequality (LMI) conditions are derived for gain selection. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated using the speed control of a DC motor. Thanks to the integral action property, it is shown that the tracking error remains zero under constant disturbance affecting the system.