Gain-Scheduled Level Controller for FESTO MPS PA Station Tank

Abstract

In this article, a Gain Scheduling (GS) approach is proposed to control the FESTO MPS PA Station Tank level by controlling the centrifugal pump. The open loop transfer function for each operating condition is experimentally obtained. The data from the open-loop system is imported to MATLAB in order to get the transfer function for each condition. The data shows that each operating point has a different transfer function in terms of gain and time constant. Based on this, a gain-scheduling controller is proposed to handle the variations of process model parameters. The proposed controller parameters are adapted based on the operating conditions of the system. These parameters include the tank capacitance and the flow pipe resistance and/or the valve resistance to the flow. Two different controller techniques for FESTO MPS PA Station Tank level control are applied, verified and compared. The first controller is based on classical Proportional Integral (PI) controller, while the second one is based on the proposed gain scheduling controller. Experimental results show that the proposed gain-scheduling controller can manipulate the process at different operating conditions with parameters variations in order to give uniform performance. The classical PI controller has failed to achieve this requirement at different operation conditions.