VRFT-BASED LINEAR CONTROLLER DESIGNS FOR INTEGER-AND-FRACTIONAL-ORDER SYSTEMS

Abstract

The contemporary process industries need to adhere to stringent product specifications and environmental regulations, thus making high control performance more important than ever. With incessant technological advancements, the processes have become more complex and hence difficult to model, which is essential to the conventional model-based design methods. On the other hand, the availability of a plethora of process data has recently led to the development of data-based controller design methods, wherein controller design is carried out without resorting to a process model. One such method is the Virtual-Reference-Feedback-Tuning (VRFT) method. In this work, different VRFT-based linear controller design methods have been developed for integer- and fractional-order systems. These designs encompass the essential aspects of reference model, controller structure and tests for obtaining data for a wide variety of chemical processes.