This paper presents the application of adaptive control strategy to a separately excited DC motor SEDCM. An experimentally validated physical model for the SEDCM is first presented. Recursive identification of this model structure is carried out using a single-input single-output SISO parameter estimation algorithm to obtain an equivalent discrete-time state space model of the SEDCM system. Linear quadratic Gaussian LQG design is implemented on the estimated model with the objectives of reference tracking and disturbance rejection. Simulation studies are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.