A tuning of the nonlinear PI controller and its experimental application

Abstract

Many industrial chemical process control systems consist of conventional PID and nonlinear controllers, even though many advanced control strategies have been proposed. In addition, nonlinear control methods are widely used even for linear processes to achieve better control performance compared with linear PID controllers. However, there are few tuning methods for these nonlinear controllers. In this work, we suggest new controller tuning methods for the error square type of nonlinear PI controller. These control methods can be applied to a large number of linear and nonlinear processes without changing control structures. We also propose new tuning rules for integrating processes. In addition, we suggest application guidelines for performing the proposed tuning rules at the pilot scale multistage level control system. Finally, in this work we confirmed good control performances of the proposed tuning methods through both simulation studies and experimental studies.