Event-Based PI Control Applied to Laboratory Plant

Abstract

In this research, event-based PI controllers is implemented to control a liquid flow-rate in a laboratory plant. With the emerging technologies like Industry 4.0 and IoT, the Networked Control Systems (NCSs) are said to be wirelessly connected in the distributed process industries, thereby reduction in signal transmissions, CPU utilization and power consumption. The flow-rate valve actuator transfer function is identified as a first-order plus dead time (FOPDT) using the open-loop reaction curve of the plant and it is tuned with the SIMC-PI tuning method. A time-based PI controller is designed and simulated on the plant with event-based PI controller techniques. This is further improved as an advanced type of event-based PI strategy (PIDPLUS controller) to improve the performance. These techniques are implemented and simulated in the MATLAB/SIMULINK workspace aided by OPC toolbox that provides the interface for laboratory plant data reading and control. The emerging technologies used in this research can be employed by the industries in PNG to enhance their productivity and performance.