A two-layered fuzzy logic controller for systems with deadzones

Existing fuzzy control methods do not perform well when applied to systems containing nonlinearities arising from unknown deadzones. In particular, we show that a usual "fuzzy PD" controller applied to a system with a deadzone suffers from poor transient performance and a large steady-state error. In this paper, we propose a novel two-layered fuzzy logic controller for controlling systems with deadzones. The two-layered control structure consists of a fuzzy logic-based precompensator followed by a usual fuzzy PD controller. Our proposed controller exhibits superior transient and steady-state performance compared to usual fuzzy PD controllers. In addition, the controller is robust to variations in deadzone nonlinearities. We illustrate the effectiveness of our scheme using computer simulation examples.