PREDICTIVE CONTROL METHOD AND APPARATUS

This invention relates to a predictive control method and apparatus for controlling a nonlinearly controlled object, such as a manipulator. The method and apparatus can control an object having unknown dynamic characteristics and can compensate for disturbances. A multi-layered neural network is provided as an identification model for the object to the controlled. A controlled variable signal received from the object and a manipulated variable signal for controlling the object are fed into the neural network to predict a future value of the controlled variable signal using forward calculation. The predicted future value is compared with a desired control variable value to produce an error value. The error value is input to the neural network to compute a correction value for the manipulated variable signal using back-propagation. The correction value is used to modify the manipulated variable signal value to thereby control the object.