This paper discusses an experiment-based approach to teaching an advanced control engineering syllabus involving controlled plant analysis and modeling, control structures and algorithms, real-time laboratory experiments, and their assessment. These experiments are structured around the representative case of the longitudinal slip control of an antilock braking system (ABS). The basic and advanced control strategies that are experimentally studied include the proportional-integral (PI) control, gain scheduling, iterative feedback tuning (IFT) and fuzzy control. The final grades obtained by representative groups of students demonstrate the efficiency of a described hands-on laboratory experimental study of a complex antilock braking system as encountered in practice, which allowed students to gain a better understanding of the theoretical aspects learned during the lectures.

The “Model Reference Adaptive Control (MRAC)” is a popular and efficient controller that normally is designed by the use of Lyapunov's 2 ^nd (“direct”) method guaranteeing global asymptotic stability. However, the use of Lyapunov function can entail a relatively complicated tuning that may have disadvantages whenever very fast applications are needed. In this paper an alternative background, the application of “Robust Fixed Point Transformations (RFPT)” working with local basin of attraction of convergence is recommended to simplify this task. As a potential application example the adaptive control of an “Electrostatic Micro-actuator (EμA)” is considered that contains considerable non-linearities. The conclusions of the paper are substantiated by simulation results.

Recently a systematic method was presented for the generation of whole families of “Fixed Point Transformations” that can be used in nonlinear adaptive control of “Single Input - Single Output (SISO)” systems as alternatives of Lyapunov's “direct method”. In the present paper further development of this alternative method is considered. It consists in the generalization of the method for “Multiple Input - Multiple Output (MIMO)” systems. The applicability of the novel method is demonstrated by the adaptive control of a 2 “Degree of Freedom (DoF)” system, a cart indirectly driven in the horizontal direction by a rotated pendulum. Results of numerical simulations illustrate and substantiate the usability of the suggested approach.