Simple Way of Tuning Centralized PI Controller for an Interacting Pilot Plant Distillation Column

Abstract

A simple robust control technique based on centralized PI is proposed for an interacting pilot plant distillation column. The diagonal elements of the overall open loop transfer function of the system are reduced to first-order plus dead-time (FOPDT) model. The proposed method considers Steady-State Gain Matrix and loop transfer function parameters like time delay and time constant for the centralized controller design. The proposed controller method is validated using Wood and Berry distillation column and pilot plant binary distillation column. The servo response shows that the designed centralized PI controller has good robust stability and performance.