Closed form tuning equations for model predictive control of first-order plus fractional dead time models

Abstract

Many industrial processes can be effectively described with first-order plus fractional dead time models. In the case of plants with a large dead time relative to the time constant, approximations in discretizing the time delay can adversely affect the performance and if the sample time is enforced by system requirements, the fractional nature of the delay should be considered. In this paper, an ana- lytical approach to model predictive control tuning for stable and unstable first-order plus dead time models with fractional delay is presented. The existing tuning methods are based on trial and error or numerical optimization approaches and the available closed form equations are limited to plants with integer delays. In this paper, an analytical approach is adopted and the issues of closed loop stability and achievable performance are addressed. Finally, simulation results are used to show the effective- ness of the proposed tuning strategy.