Servo systems become more and more important in control systems applications in various fields as both separate control systems and actuators. Ensuring very good control system performance using few information on the servo system model (viewed as a controlled process) is a challenging task. Starting with authors’ results on data-driven model-free control, fuzzy control and the indirect model-free tuning of fuzzy controllers, this paper suggests a low-cost approach to the data-driven fuzzy control of servo systems. The data-driven fuzzy control approach consists of six steps: (i) open-loop data-driven system identification to produce the process model from input-output data expressed as the system step response, (ii) Proportional-Integral (PI) controller tuning using the Extended Symmetrical Optimum (ESO) method, (iii) PI controller parameters mapping onto parameters of Takagi-Sugeno PI-fuzzy controller in terms of the modal equivalence principle, (iv) closed-loop data-driven system identification, (v) PI controller tuning using the ESO method, (vi) PI controller parameters mapping onto parameters of Takagi-Sugeno PI-fuzzy controller. The steps (iv), (v) and (vi) are optional. The approach is applied to the position control of a nonlinear servo system. The experimental results obtained on laboratory equipment validate the approach
