Tracking of periodic oscillations in an underactuated system via adaptive neural networks

In this paper, the tracking control of periodic oscillations in an underactuated mechanical system is discussed. The proposed scheme is derived from the feedback linearization control technique and adaptive neural networks are used to estimate the unknown dynamics and to compensate uncertainties. The proposed neural network-based controller is applied to the Furuta pendulum, which is a nonlinear and nonminimum phase underactuated mechanical system with two degrees of freedom. The new neural network-based controller is experimentally compared with respect to its model-based version. Results indicated that the proposed neural algorithm performs better than the model-based controller, showing that the real-time adaptation of the neural network weights successfully estimates the unknown dynamics and compensates uncertainties in the experimental platform.