This paper studies design and implementation of an enhanced multivariable adaptive control scheme for an uncertain nonlinear process exposed to actuator faults. For adaptive fault compensation, a model reference adaptive control (MRAC) strategy is utilized as main controller. A new adaptation algorithm making possible to improve transient performance of adaptive control is integrated to the controller. With the help of further modifications, some restrictive conditions on multivariable adaptive design are relaxed so that the system requires less plant information. The resulting controller has a simpler structure than the other matrix factorization based controllers. At the final stage of design, a robust adaptive control scheme is obtained with consideration of practical implementation problems such as sensor noises, external disturbances and unmodeled system dynamics. It is proved that the controller guarantees closed-loop signal boundedness and asymptotic output tracking. Real-time experiment results acquired from quadruple tank benchmark system are presented in order to exhibit the effectiveness of the proposed scheme. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.