  In many nonlinear control problems, the plant can be accurately described by
a linear model whose operating point depends on some measurable variables,
called scheduling signals. When such a linear parameter-varying (LPV) model of
the open-loop plant needs to be derived from a set of data, several issues
arise in terms of parameterization, estimation, and validation of the model
before designing the controller. Moreover, the way modeling errors affect the
closed-loop performance is still largely unknown in the LPV context. In this
paper, a direct data-driven control method is proposed to design LPV
controllers directly from data without deriving a model of the plant. The main
idea of the approach is to use a hierarchical control architecture, where the
inner controller is designed to match a simple and a-priori specified
closed-loop behavior. Then, an outer model predictive controller is synthesized
to handle input/output constraints and to enhance the performance of the inner
loop. The effectiveness of the approach is illustrated by means of a simulation
and an experimental example. Practical implementation issues are also
discussed.
