ControlEng. Practice, Vol. 3, No. 9, pp.

1265-1276, 1995
Copyright © 1995 Elsevier Science Lid
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DEVELOPMENTS IN INDUSTRIAL APPLICATIONS OF

SELF-TUNING CONTROL
KJ. Burnham, KJ. Disdell, DJ.G. James and C.A. Smith
Control Theory and Applications Centre, Coventry University, UK

(Received October 1994; in final form March 1995)

Abstract: Control strategies based on auto-tuning and self-tuning principles are now
emerging to provide a realistic option for a wide range of industrial processes and
plant. This is particularly the case when considering batch and fed-batch process
control systems in which assumptions on slowly varying process dynamics permit the
use of such adaptive schemes. However, there are many industrial systems where com-
mercial 'off the sheff' controllers do not provide an adequate solution. Consequently
there is much on-going research activity in the refining and tailoring of algorithms in
order to provide effective implementation on specific industrial applications.

With consideration given to two industrial case-study applications, the paper de-
scribes extensions and refinements that have been introduced in order to accommo-
date for improved estimation and control law design algorithms when dealing with
systems exhibiting fast dynamic behaviour and non-linear response characteristics
respectively. The requirement for improved estimation schemes arises when one is
compelled to make use of low-order linear model structures whereas when dealing
with non-linear systems, which exhibit slowly varying dynamic characteristics,one
can afford to invest in improvements in control law design.

Keywords: Control applications, gas engines, high-temperature plant, industrial con-

trol, self-tuning regulators.

1. INTRODUCTION in many cases falling short of conventional PID

Whilst the concept of self-tuning control (STC)
dates back to the late 1950's it was not until
around the late 1980's/early 1990's, in parallel
with rapid developments in microcomputer tech-
nology, that widespread implementation of con-
trollersbased on these principlesbegan to emerge.
Many of the early successfulimplementations were
based on auto-tuning three-term proportional, in-
tegral and derivative (PID) controllers. Unfor-
tunately, however, such schemes suffer the same
drawbacks as their manually tuned counterparts
in that once tuned they are unable to adapt to
variations in the plant and its environment and
are often required to be detuned to provide for a
'satisfactory' performance over a wide variety of
operating conditions. Experience has shown that,
when applied to all but the simplest of plant, the
standard commercial self-tuning strategies are of-
ten unable to produce a satisfactory performance;
control. A detailed account of the developments
in self-tuning and adaptive control may be found
in the authoritative texts (Chalam, 1987; Harris
and Billings, 1985; Wellstead and Zarrop, 1991).
Attempts to increase the applicability range of
STC have included enhanced algorithms to pro-
vide features such as: variable forgetting fac-
tors for improved adaptivity (Fortescue et al.,
1981; Wellstead and Sanoff, 1981); covariance
resetting for increased alertness and numeri-
cal stability (Goodhart et al., 1991; Hagglund,
1983); state-space techniques for smoother control
action (Warwick, 1981); and predictive control
(Clarke et al., 1987) in which the generated con-
trol action is based on long-range predictions of fu-
ture system output. Whilst use of these extended
techniques has led to improved performance when
dealing with systems for which local linearity can
be assumed, such techniques are often rendered

1265
1266 K.J. Burnham et al.
inadequate when attempting to apply STC to sys-
tems exhibiting extreme non-linear and/or fast
dynamic behaviour. Consequently there is much
on-going research and development into alterna-
tive controller designs, and considerable interest
is focused on the requirements for specific appli-
cations.
The Control Theory and Applications Centre,
Coventry University, is actively involved with col-
laborative projects in which STCs are being de-
signed/developed, application specific, for a num-
ber of industrial systems, see for example (Good-
hart, 1991; King, 1992; Paterson, 1993). The two
case-study applications considered in this paper
are considered to be representative of two broad
classes of industrial systems, these being: speed
control of a gas engine; and control of a high-
temperature heating plant. The two systems are
considered separately in order to highlight the dif-
fering demands placed on the requirements of ap-
propriate STC schemes. It is shown that in the
case of the gas engine that improvements are pos-
sible when use is made of enhanced estimation
schemes (Smith et al., 1994a, b) and in the case
of the high-temperature plant that improvements
are possible when use is made of enhanced control
law design schemes (Disdell et al., 1994a, b).
2. SELF-TUNING CONTROLLER
The basic STC consists of two coupled sub-
algorithms, one for on-line estimation of the pa-
rameters of an assumed model structure and the
other for implementation of an appropriate con-
trol law.
The discrete-time model that is commonly
adopted within STC is based on the single-input
single-output (SISO) autoregressive moving aver-
age extended ARMAX structure
A(q-1)y(t) = q-kB(q-1)u(t) + e(t) (1)
where q-i is the backward shift operator defined
by q-iy(t) = y(t - i); k > 1 is the system dead-
time expressed as an integer multiple of the sam-
pling interval T; u(t), y(t) and e(t) are, respec-
tively, the plant input, output and white noise
output disturbance sequences and the polynomi-
als A(q-1) and B(q-1) are defined by the general
polynomial
M(q -1) = m o + ml q-1 + m2q-2 + . . . + mn,,q-n,~
where na >_ rib, a0 = 1 and b0 ¢ O.
The algorithms used in the two case-study appli-
cations are derived from standard recursive least
squares (RLS) for parameter estimation and gen-
eralised predictive control (GPC) for control im-
plementation. These standard algorithms, to-
gether with a cautious least squares (CLS) algo-
rithm for supplementing the RLS approach, are
given as follows:
2.1 Standard recursive least squares.
When considering the design of STC strategies
the parameter-estimation algorithms are of impor-
tance in two main areas. The first of these is in
the open-loop analysis of real-time data for the
purpose of model validation. Secondly, when the
algorithms are implemented on-line under closed-
loop conditions, to provide parameter estimates
for the control input calculation, the requirement
is for estimated values which provide for 'good'
overall controller performance. It may be the case
that a more accurate set of parameter values does
not guarantee improved closed-loop STC perfor-
mance, hence the parameter-estimation schemes
most suited for open-loop and closed-loop condi-
tions may differ.
Rearranging (1) into a form suitable for RLS leads
to
y(t) = xr(t)8(t) + ~(t)
where x(t) is the observation vector
xT(t) = [ --y(t -- 1 ) . . . - - y(t -- na); u(t -- k)
... u ( t - k - nb) ],
O(t) is the parameter vector
oT(t) = [ a l . . . an, ;b0... b,~]
and ~(t) is a sequence of residuals, which includes
both measurement noise and errors due to estima-
tion.
The standard RLS algorithm is derived by min-
imising the least-squares cost function
J R L S = IlY -- X 0 1 1 2
where y is a vector of measured outputs and X is
the observation matrix. The estimated parameter
vector 8(t) is generated from
8(t) = 8(t-1)+dp(t)[y(t)--xT (t)8(t--1)] (2)
~b(t) = @(t-1)x(t)[1 + x T ( t ) t ( t - - 1 ) x ( t ) ] -1
• (t) = [I-- ¢b(t)xr(t)]t(t--1)/a
where ~b(t) and @(t) are the gain vector and error
covariance matrix respectively, with 2 <_ 1 be-
ing a forgetting factor which allows for tracking
of time-varying parameters. A good summary of
RLS may be found in (Hsia, 1977).
 IndustrialApplications of Self-TuningControl 1267

~.2 Cautious least squares
Cautious least squares (CLS) involves the biasing
of the least-squares estimate 0 towards some pre-
set value Os known as the 'safe'set of parameter
estimates (Burnham and James, 1986, 1991; Ran-
dall and Burnham, 1994). The use of CLS allows
the incorporation of engineering knowledge within
the algorithm and provides for a robust approach
which, by exciting the algorithm without causing
disturbances to the plant, has the effect of influ-
encing the algorithm through a practical knowl-
edge of the system. The algorithm is based on
minimization of the cost function
JcLs =llY - x0112 + IIO0 - #112
and is realised in two stages. Firstly the param-
eter estimate 0 is calculated in the usual way
using RLS. At each iteration this vector is then
'cautioned' using a second algorithm. The 'cau-
tioned' parameter estimates, denoted 0, are then
progressed to the control law design algorithm.
where E{.} is the expectation operator, the first
term represents the variance of future output er-
rors, the second term represents the variance of fu-
ture incremental control actions, p is a user speci-
fied tuning knob, hp and hc are the prediction and
control horizons respectively and Au(t) is defined
by a u ( t ) = u(t) - u(t - 1).
Defining fi to be the vector of future incremental
controls
fiT = [Au(t),Au(t + 1 ) , . . . , A u ( t + h , - 1)],
r to be the vector of future reference set points
r r = [r(t + 1),r(t + 2 ) , . . . , r ( t + hp)],
~, to be the vector of contributions to future out-
puts that can be accounted for at time t
j r = [~(t + l),~(t+ 2 ) , . . . , ~ ( t + hn) ]
and G to be the lower triangular matrix
(Clarke et al., 1987)

The stage-two algorithm yielding the solutions 0j, go 0 0

gl go 0
j = 1,..., p where p is the number of parameters
estimated, is given by G = g2 gl

#j --" 0j-1 "]"~j [eT [0s- bj-1]] (3) g(h-l) g(h-2) go

= [1 -1
where oj is the orthogonal unit vector in the jth
direction. Initial values 00 and @0 are set to the
values 0(t) and t ( t ) , generated from RLS, respec-
tively. Following the p iterations of CLS the cau-
tious values O n = O(t)and a n = @(t) are fed back
to the RLS algorithm (2).
the GPC algorithm derived from (4) takes the
form
fi : [ G r G + ~I]-1 G r [r - 3];
I being the identity matrix of appropriate dimen-
sion.
It is common to set he = 1 (i.e. a unity control
horizon) so that the GPC algorithm becomes

An element of confidence in the safe set 0, may be Au(t) = [gTg + . ] - l g T [ r _ Y]

introduced to reduce the number of iterations per- where g is the leading column in G, hence reduc-
formed. This may be implemented in a number of ing significantly the computational intensity of the
ways, one of which is to specify a 'safe range' for approach.
each parameter value, based on knowledge of ac-
ceptable parameter variations for a specific plant. In general (for the case of k = 1), the SISO GPC
This may be interpreted as specifying a 'safe sub- algorithm becomes
space' in the solution space of the least squares
problem. When using such an approach, should
the estimated parameter vector {} stray outside
hp-1
Z
, ]
this subspace, then caution is applied. i=0 j=o
A (t) = (5)
hp-1 ' i 2
2.3 Standard generalised predictive control Z
i=0 j=O
The GPC algorithm (Clarke et al., 1987) is de- where vj=r(t + j ) - , ~ ( t % j ) , j = 1...hp, are
rived by minimising the cost function the future reference deviations over the prediction
horizon hp. The fj0 are obtained recursively from
f hp hc 2)
J = E ~ E [ y ( t + 3)-r(t + 3312+Ep[Au(t + j - 1)] = -
(j=l
B
j=l
O) withf00=land * ) = a(i+l) - a l .
a(i+l
1268 K.J. Burnham et al.
3. GAS ENGINE DRIVEN CHP UNIT
There are a number of control loops within a gas
engine combined heat and power (CHP) plant;
these include temperature control, air/gas ratio
control and power factor correction. However the
loop which is of primary concern is that of speed
control, since this is the fundamental loop govern-
ing the overall energy balance within the system.
The speed control loop is taken as Case Study 1.
In a CHP unit the engine shaft is connected to
a generator to provide power to either a stand-
alone load or to an electricity supply network. In
both cases an important feature is the utilization
of heat produced by the normal operation of the
gas engine. The gas engine control problem may
be formulated in a number of ways and in the
case of the CHP supplying a stand-alone load (the
application considered in this paper) the require-
ment is to maintain constant speed despite the
presence of sudden and gradual changes in load.
The performance of the gas engine speed con-
troller is affected by a number of factors including
load disturbances, variation in overall effective-
hess due to differing calorific value of the fuel, en-
gine condition and environmental conditions such
as humidity. It is recognition of the above fac-
tors in addition to the problems of manually tuned
PID controllers that has led to the present inves-
tigations into alternative self-tuning strategies.
In developing STC schemes for the gas engine it
is found that a great deal of care needs to be
taken when considering the parameter-estimation
scheme to be used, with refinements to the con-
trol algorithm being of less importance. This
observation is heightened by the fact that when
dealing with such high bandwidth systems one is
compelled to make use of low-order model struc-
tures. Consequently, the tracking of parameter
variations is crucial in the resulting overall STC
scheme; the parameters varying as a function of
the unmodelled system dynamics. The work pre-
sented in this section will demonstrate the abil-
ity of a number of parameter-estimation schemes
to track the variations in model parameters in
the presence of sudden load change and to as-
sess the performance of the overall STC scheme.
The parameter-estimation schemes to be consid-
ered are those of RLS, Kalman filtering (KF),
orthogonal transformation (OT) based RLS and
cautious least squares (CLS). The control imple-
mentation stage makes use of a standard GPC
strategy.
3.1 Model structure
The linear model structure of the gas engine is
derived by treating the engine as an air pump
and considering the flow of air through the system
(Dobner, 1983). This allows the torque produced
by the engine from the input throttle position to
be calculated and compared with the torque from
the applied load. The resulting torque is then used
to calculate the output speed. The discrete time
transfer function for the engine can be represented
in an extended form of the SISO ARMAX model
(1) and is given by
A (q-1)y( t )=q-k B(q- X)u(t ) +e( t ) + q-~ D(q- X)g(t)
(6)
where y(t) is the output speed, u(t) is the input
throttle position, e(t) is an assumed white noise
output disturbance and l(t) is the applied load.
D(q -1) is a polynomial of order na in the back-
ward shift operator q-1.
A model structure that is appropriate for formu-
lating the gas engine speed control problem takes
the form
y(t) : -aly(t - 1) - a z y ( t - 2) + b o u ( t - 1)
+blu(t - 2) + d o e ( t - 1) + d l t ( t - 2) + e(t)
(7)
which is in the form of equation (6) with na = 2,
nb = 1, n d = 1 and k = 1. However, for the
purpose of control law implementation the model
is assumed to take a structure of the form
A(q-1)y(t) = q-k f3(q-1)u(t) + e(t)
with na = 2, n~ = 1 and k = 1, i.e.
y(t) = -51y(t - 1) - azy(t - 2) -t- bou(t - 1)
+ - 2) + e(t) (8)
in which the effects due to load changes and other
influential factors are assumed to be 'absorbed'
into the estimated values of the time-varying pa-
rameters at, ~2, b0 and bl. Since these parameter
variations may be large there is a fundamental
need for a parameter-estimation scheme which is
robust yet adaptive.
8.2 Parameter-estimation techniques
The following estimation algorithms are consid-
ered:
Standard reeursive least squares. The standard al-
gorithm as previously stated in (2) is implemented
with use being made of a fixed forgetting factor to
improve parameter tracking ability. The RLS al-
gorithm is easily implemented on-line and requires
relatively little computational effort.
 Industrial Applications of Self-Tuning Control
Kalman filtering. Originally proposed for linear
state estimation, the KF is a two-stage predic-
tion/correction algorithm which may be config-
ured for parameter estimation (Young, 1974). Use
of the KF facilitates the incorporation of engineer-
ing knowledge within the algorithm. When con-
figured for parameter estimation it takes the form
Prediction:
0 ( t i t - 1) = #(t l i t - 1)
- the KF algorithm in stage one. When the stage-
@ ( t l t - 1) = @(t - lit - 1) +
Correction:
D(tlt) = O(tlt- 1)+4p(t)[y(t)--xT(t)#(tlt-- 1)] (9)
4)(t) = t(t It -- 1)x(t)[r~ +x T (t)t(t It -- 1)x(t)]-I
t(tlt) = [I -- 4~(t)xr(t)]~(tlt -- 1)
where Rw and r~ denote the process noise covari-
ance matrix and the output noise variance respec-
tively. These quantities are required to be spec-
ified by the user and are based on knowledge of
the plant. O(tlt - 1) is a prediction based on infor-
mation up to and including time step (t - 1) and
O(tlt ) is a correction based on information up to
and including time step (t).
Orthogonal transformation method. Standard
RLS can often be rendered inadequate if ill-
conditioning of the least-squares problem occurs.
For if there is slight ill-conditioning of the orig-
inal problem, i.e. within the observation matrix
X, then use of an equivalent information matrix
X T X within a standard RLS based approach will
cause thisill-conditioningto become more severe
(Gill et al.,1991). The alternativeO T algorithm
for implementing RLS, which is based on the
square-rootfilteringtechniquesof Bierman (1977)
and utilizesthe method of Q R factorization,re-
tains the conditioningof the originalproblem.
The Q R factorization based algorithm is derived
by minimizing the least-squares cost function by
applying orthogonal transformations which do not
exacerbate the condition of X. It is adopted here
to perform the orthogonal transformations due to
its relative simplicity and ease of use for on-line
implementation (Bobrow and Murray, 1993).
The algorithm, which is derived in detail in
(Smith et al., 1994c), is stated as
#(t) = 0(t - 1) + At0(t) (10)
R(t)z~0(t) = y(t) (by back substitution)
R ( t - 1)
(by Q R factorization)
with ~(t) = y(t) - xT(t)O(t -- 1)
1269
where Q(t) is orthogonal,R(t) is upper triangu-
lar,AO(t + 1) = O(t + 1) --8(t) is the incremental
change in the estimatedparameter vectorand y(t)
and ~(t) are some values arrived at afterfactor-
ization.
Cautions least squares. As described in Section
2.2 CLS is realised in two stages. The cautious
second-stage algorithm given in (3) is appropriate
when use is made of either the standard RLS or
one algorithm makes use of the OT scheme (10)
then the equivalent stage-two algorithm to that of
(3) is given by
RjA81 = Y1 (by back substitution)
[~Ie3 '50 ] = Q J [ R0j ~j'](QR factorization)
and ~, : e T [0, - 0,_1]
where initialisations are similar to those in (3), i.e.
R0 = R ( t ) and 00 = 0(t) with the final values
0p = 0(t) and 1~ = R(t) being fed back to the
algorithm (10).
3.3 Generalised predictive control
The standard GPC algorithm described in Sec-
tion 2.3 is implemented in conjunction with the
parameter-estimation schemes described above.
With the model being characterised by na = 2,
n~ = 1 and k = 1, the GPC algorithm is set up
with hp = 2 and hc = 1. The GPC control action
is then computed from
Au(t) = fooboVl + [f00bl + flobo]v2 (11)
2 2
f~obo + [f00bl + fx0b0]2 + p
where the vi and fio coefficients are as defined
in Section 2.3, so that u(t) = Au(t) + u(t - 1)
becomes the next input to the system.
3.~ Simulation studies
Simulation studies have been designed to repre-
sent the closed-loop operation of a typical CHP
unit when supplying power to a stand-alone load.
In this case the reference speed is constant (to
supply a fixed voltage) and the system may expe-
rience sudden and gradual changes in load. For
the purpose of illustration a sudden load change
is simulated and the parameter tracking ability
for the various parameter-estimation schemes is
assessed. The performance of the overall STC
scheme, with use being made of GPC, is consid-
ered and compared to that of the standard three-
term PID controller.
1270 K.J. Burnhamet al.

With the reference speed fixed at one unit a test

is carried out over a 105s period with a sudden 1.02
load change applied after 55s. In order to allow
the actual changes in estimated parameters to be 1.01
known, the load change is simulated by setting
do = dl = 0 in (7) and making a step change in the 1
values of al, a2, b0 and hi. The simulated model
will therefore have the same structure as the esti- 0.99
mated model (8) and the parameter tracking abil-
ity can be realistically investigated. The simu- 0.98
50 100
lated load change is equivalent to a step change of
2 2 . 9 k V A in the power supplied by the CHP unit.
time (second)
A sampling interval of T = 0.1s is adopted and a Fig. la: System response PID-1 control
white noise output disturbance of approximately
- 5 0 r i b represents the measurement noise. 1.02

In particular, the parameter-estimation schemes 1.01

of RLS, KF and OT are compared when operat-
ing with and without the use of CLS. The RLS "" 1
and OT algorithms make use of a fixed forgetting
factor of ~ = 0.985 to aid parameter tracking and 8. 0.99
the KF makes use of a process noise covariance
matrix 1 ~ and an output noise variance rv which 0.98
are selected assuming limited engineering knowl- 50 100
edge of the plant. When use is made of CLS the time (second)
safe set 0, is set to values close to the actual pa-
rameter values and caution applied at every step. Fig. lb: System response PID-2 control

To assess the performance of the overall control
scheme a standard GPC algorithm as given by
(11) is employed with a prediction horizon of
hp = 2 and a controller weighting of p = 10.
To form a basis for comparison the performance
of two settings of the PID controller gains are
recorded: PID-1 in which the gains are tuned to
give 'satisfactory' performance for both loads; and
PID-2 in which good performance is achieved in
the case of the first load demand at the expense
of poor performance following the sudden change
in load. The controller gain settings for PID-1 are
Kp = 0.2, Ki = 0.05 and Kd = 0.075 and for
PID-2 are K~ = 0.2, Ki = 0.1 and Kd = 0.2.
When assessing the performance of the various
controller schemes in terms of average integral of
absolute error (IAE) the first 5s period is omitted
to remove the effects of initial transients in the
simulation. The performances for both loads are
evaluated over 500 iterations so that the overall
measure of performance corresponds to the aver-
age value taken over the full test period. The
objective is to regulate the speed about a nor-
malised set point reference of unity. Results given
in Tables 1, 2 and 3 correspond to the two PID
controllers, self-tuning GPC in the absence of CLS
and self-tuning GPC with CLS respectively. It is
clear from the results given in Table 1 that it is
necessary to detune the PID controller to be ef-
fective across the full range. The performance of
the de-tuned PID-1 controller is given in Fig. la
Table 1 Normalised IAE for PID controllers
First load Second load Overall
PID-1 2.423 3.035 5.458
PID-2 2.338 10.440 12.777
and the performance of PID-2 is given in Fig. lb.
In the absence of CLS the K F / G P C combination
is found to produce the best overall performance,
with corresponding system response and conver-
gence behaviour of the estimated parameter val-
ues being given in Figs. 2a and 2b respectively.
In the case of the parameter estimates, the solid,
dashed, dotted and dot-dashed traces correspond,
respectively, to estimated values of al, a2, b0 and
bl. It should be noted, however, that whilst the es-
timated parameters converge to steady-state val-
ues they are in fact biased from their true values.
This is believed to be due possibly to invocation
of the self-tuning property (Warwick, 1982).
When CLS is applied the performance of the
KF/GPC scheme is found to deteriorate, however,
the performance of the RLS/GPC and OT/GPC
schemes are greatly improved, the OT/GPC
scheme producing the most favourable results.
 IndustrialApplicationsof Self-TuningControl 1271

1.02 1.02

.~ 1. ~
e.

"~
1.01

1
L
@

0.99 0.99

0.980 0.98~
50 100 50 100
time (second) time (second)
Fig. 2a: System response using KF and GPC Fig. 3a: System response using OT, CLS and
GPC
[ i

,It ~ I :
"" 2
.s
l.:!:/'" :: ? ,t
0 "- ~ " ~ ' . % ~ * ~ ¢ x / ~ ; ~ % ~
o

I.I

o 5b 1oo o 5b 100
l

time (second)
time (second)
Fig. 2b: Estimated system parameters
Fig. 3b: Estimated system parameters
Table 2 Normalised IAE without CLS
Table 3 Normalised IAE with CLS

First load Second load Overall

First load Second load Overall

RLS 1.589 4.796 6.386

RLS 1.594 3.215 4.809
OT 1.572 3.657 5.229
OT 1.592 2.888 4.480
KF 1.500 2.739 4.239
KF 3.057 2.815 5.872

The system response and convergence behaviour

of the parameter estimates for the OT/GPC
scheme are shown in Figs. 3a and 3b respectively.
The estimated parameter values in this case are
closer to their true values. It is clear from Figs.
2a and 3a that, with the exception of the tran-
sient immediately following load change, the over-
all performance of the OT/GPC scheme with CLS
provides the more favourable results.
4. HIGH-TEMPEKATURE FURNACE
The particular plant under investigation in this
work is a high-temperature heat treatment (or re-
heat) furnace, and the objective of the controller is
to maintain some pre-defined temperature profile
within the furnace whilst accommodating varia-
tion in dynamic behaviour as the furnace gradu-
ally 'soaks' throughout a batch process operation.
Such a high-temperature gas-fired industrial fur-
nace forms the basis of Case Study 2.
High-temperature heating plant applications are
known from physical considerations to exhibit
highly non-linear characteristics; with the non-
linearity being found to be appropriately mod-
elled as a multiplicative bilinear term involving
the input (gas flow) and output (temperature).
Recent developments in the design of SISO bilin-
ear GPC strategies may be found in (Goodhart
et al., 1992a, 1994). Successful field trials have
shown consistently that potential significant im-
provements in terms of reduced fuel usage may be
achieved when use is made of STC schemes based
on bilinear model structures (Disdell et al., 1993a;
Future Practice R & D Report, 1994; Stanford,
1993).
1272 K.J. Burnham etal.
With increased concerns over environmental
issues, any controller developed for high-
temperature plant utilizing fossil fuel is re-
quired to meet constraints on emission control
(Goodhart, 1994). The furnace under considera-
tion has two zones and makes use of regenerative
burner technology, having one pair of regenerative
burners per zone. Whilst the use of pre-heated
combustion air in the regenerative system leads
to an increase in plant efficiency, it also gives rise
to a potential increase in the production of NOx
(Brennan, 1993; Cornforth, 1992). The result-
ing multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) sys-
tem comprises two interacting loops, namely: the
combustion loop and the emission loop, and the
problem is that of optimising combustion subject
to constraints on emissions. In this section, how-
ever, attention is focused towards the multiple-
input single-output (MISO) combustion loop only,
the gas flow into each zone representing an input
to the system and the highest zone temperature
representing the output (Disdell et al., 1993b).
In contrast to the gas engine system, the furnace
may be considered as a slow acting plant having
an equivalent time constant of several hours. Typ-
ically, a loaded furnace may be in operation for in
excess of 100 hours. Whereas in Case Study 1 at-
tention was focused towards enhanced parameter-
estimation schemes, the slow acting nature of the
furnace, Case Study 2, permits the use of ex-
tended non-linear models and corresponding con-
trol law designs can be investigated. An appropri-
ate sampling interval for modelling the non-linear
furnace dynamics is found to be of the order 5-10s.
When adopting a bilinear model structure it is
important to ensure the robustness of the esti-
mation scheme and in this work use is made of a
standard RLS procedure in conjunction with CLS,
thus allowing for increased complexity within the
control law design algorithm. Since the increased
sampling interval permits the use of enhanced
control law design procedures, attention is fo-
cused towards a MISO implementation of a GPC
scheme suitably tailored to accommodate the bi-
linear terms (Disdell et ai., 1994b).
4.1 BiHnear model structure
Motivation for the work on bilinear systems in
the case of furnace temperature control has arisen
from recognition of the potential benefits that can
be gained in terms of reduced energy usage as well
as meeting environmental regulations on emis-
sions (Goodhart, 1991). Bilinear systems provide
adequate model representations and are known to
be applicable for a wide range of engineering sys-
tems. They are a class of 'nearly linear' systems
which are defined to be linear in state and con-
trol when considered independently with the non-
linearity,or bilinearity,arisingfrom multiplicative
terms involving state and control (Mohler, 1973).
In addition to high-temperature plant applica-
tions they have been used successfully in the
modelling of fermentation processes, disc braking
systems, heating/cooling systems and ac/dc ma-
chines (Bruni et al., 1974; Burnham and Johnson,
1994; Figalli et al., 1984; Goodhart et al.,1992b;
Johnson, 1993).
SISO bilinear model representation. When deal-
ing with a single-zone high-temperature furnace
as in (Goodhart et aL, 1992a, 1994) it is pertinent
to adopt a SISO model structure. In order to sim-
plify the modelling process it becomes necessary
to make assumptions about the physical system.
A detailed account of these assumptions may be
found in (Goodhart, 1991). By taking into ac-
count the law of conservation of energy an appro-
priate SISO bilinear model structure for a single-
zone furnace takes the form
A(q-1)y(t)=q-tB(q-X)u(t) + e(t)
n b ITL
+q-t E E z , ( t - i ) u ( t - i - j + 1)r/ij.
i=0 j=l
Note that the multiplicative term involving zn(t)
and u(t) represents the bilinearity within the sys-
tem.
MISO bilinear model representation. Extend-
ing the formulation to encompass the multi-
zone multi-burner furnace application leads to the
MISO bilinear model structure
r
A(q- 1)y(t) = q- t y]~ Bj (q- 1)uj (t) + e(t)
j=l
~b ~ r
+q-' E E E z.(t-p)uj(t-i-p+ 1)4 `
p=O i = 1 j = l
where the Bj(q -1) polynomials are defined as
B (q-1) = + q-1 + . . . +
where O < j _ < r a n d ~:~OVj>O.
For practical purposes a simple model is required
and for the application under consideration it is
assumed that ha=l, nb=0, k=l, r=2 and m=1.
4.2 Bilinear self-tuning controller
In the development stage of a M I S O bilinear con-
trollerit is necessary to take into account the in-
teraction which occurs between the zones in the
furnace. In this application symmetry within the
 IndustrialApplicationsof Self-TuningControl
furnace is assumed; further details may be found
in (Disdell et aL, 1994b).
Parameter estimation. The scheme makes use of
an RLS algorithm which is of the form (2) appro-
priately extended to accommodate the additional
bilinear terms. Essentially the parameter and ob-
servation vectors O(t) and z(t) are extended to
take the form (Disdell et ai., 1993b)
ST(t) = [al " " a n . ;blo "" btnb ; ' " ;bro "" brn, ;
~0~1""~.~1 ;'";~0~ "'~.~.~ ;'";
I~1 " ' ' ~ r s l "'';~]~}m " ' ' ~ . m
=T(t) = [ --~(t -- 1) . . . . y(t -- ..);
ul(t-- k) . . . U l ( t - k - nb);
~,(t - k)...u~(t - k - "b);
~(t - k ) ~ ( t -k)...~(t -k - - - b ) ~ l ( t -k - " b ) ;
• . . ; ~(t - - k ) ~ ( t --k)...~,(t -k --,b)~,(t
$n(t - k)ur(t - k - m -I- i)
•..~,(t- k - .b)ur(t-- k - nb-- m + 1)].
In addition, as described in Section 2.2, use is also
made of CLS in which the parameter and obser-
vation vectors are accordingly extended.
MISO bilinear generalised predictive
Building on the SISO hilinear GPC algorithm
given in (Goodhart et al., 1992a, 1994) the MISO
bilinear GPC approach attempts to minimise the
cost function
f h, h=
J=E I ~ [ y ( t + 3)-r(t + 3~]2 % ~_p[Au'(t + j - 1)]2~
V----1 j--1 ) expressed in the form
(12)
where Au'(t) - u'(t)-u'(t-1) and, in the case of
symmetry, Au'(t) -- Aut = Au~. The resulting
control action for Au'(t) is obtained from
[~,o~ + ~,o~] [Vl +v,/,0+...v~k~_,)0
] racy of set-point tracking. In terms of the average
Au'(t)=[gl+ b0212[l+[ft0]2+...[f(h_l)0]2]+/~"
Note that the bilinear term is combined with both
the A~q-1) and the B(q -1) polynomials, where
b~ = b~ + ~}0iy(t - 1) and the coemcient al in
A(q -1) is replaced by al = al - Wolu(t - 1).
4.3 Simulation studies
Simulation studies have been carried out in or-
der to assess the performance of the bilinear S T C
scheme. The simulated set-point temperature
profile provides a reference which comprises 1052
iterations. It consists of an initial soak at 400 o
for 36 iterations followed by a ramp up to 1080 °,
this intermediate temperature is held for 201 iter-
ations followed by a step change to 1120 o which is
1273
held constant for a further 228 iterations. This is
followed by a step change to 1180° which is held
constant for the remainder of the test.
The simulation trials are aimed at evaluating the
performance of a PID scheme against bilinear and
linear forms of the GPC control strategy. In the
case of the PID controller, Kp, Ki and Kd are
given as 0.15, 0.15 and 0 respectively. Both the bi-
linear and linear GPC schemes are initialised with
a prediction horizon hp = 5, a controller weighting
p - 0.01 and a control horizon of unity. Note the
linear GPC scheme is simply realised by setting
]
the bilinear terms to zero.
Performance indices. In order to draw compar-
isons between the different control schemes an in-
dex or measure of performance is required. The
measure of effectiveness which is adopted consists
of three factors, these being the amount of gas
--k --"b) used, the variance of the controlled actuators and
the accuracy of set-point tracking.
A measure of the gas usage is obtained by numer-
ical integration of the control signal. This may be
expressed as
E u'(t)
P
control. where p is the number of iterations.
In cases where there is an increased variance in
the control signals to the gas valve positioners
this can lead to correspondingly increased costs
due to maintenance and down time due to failure.
The variance of the controlled actuator may be
E[~'(O - ~1] ~
P
The resulting product quality arising from the
control action may be expressed in terms of accu-
value of IAE the deviation of the system response
y(t) from the set-point r(t) is given as
E I ,-(t) - y(t) I
P
A combined measure of effectiveness is expressed
as a weighted sum of the individual components
e = Otl~1 -~- Q'2~2 .-]- O~3E3
the individual weightings ~t, a2 and c~3 are set
arbitrarily to unity for the purpose of this study.
In order to provide a basis for comparison a PID
controller is tuned to give satisfactory overall per-
formance across the complete temperature profile,
see Figs. 4a and 4b for the system response and
control input respectively. It is clear from Figs.
 1274 K.J. Burnham et al.

"(91 3 0 0 "Y r "-'1300 1 T--'--------"

(9

~ 1200 1200

~ 1100 1100

~ 10000 10000
500 1000 500 1000
iterations iterations
Fig. 4a: System response with PID control Fig. 6a: System response with bilinear GPC con-
trol
~, 20 i

8. ,-, 20
0 15
8.
0 .. 15
10
..-.t 10
5
5
% 560 1000
06 500 1000
iterations
Fig. 4b: Control input with PID control iterations
Fig. 6b: Control input with bilinear GPC control

"-'1300
(9
accuracy in set point tracking as well as in reduc-
ing the input control effort to the system. The re-
~,~1200 i!. sults in terms of the performance indices are given
in Table 4.
.........
1100
Table 4 Measure of performance

1000 t i

500 1000
iterations
Fig. 5a: System response with linear GPC control

o1if
PID 9.8388 2.5603 5.3740 17.7731
.---. 20
LGPC 9.73023 1.96293 3.72135 15.4146

¢. BGPC 9.59746 0.63143 2.52489 12.7538

"-" 1

06 500 1000
iterations
Fig. 5b: Control input with linear GPC control
5a, 5b, and Figs. 6a, 6b which again show sys-
tem response (a) and control input (b), that the
linear and bilinear GPC schemes produce more
favourable results respectively. The bilinear ap-
proach Figs. 6a, 6b is found to achieve improved
5. CONCLUSIONS
By drawing on two industrial systems, the paper
has highlighted problems arising in the implemen-
tation of self-tuning controllers to two broad clas-
sifications of application. In one case the use of
enhanced parameter-estimation algorithms is ne-
cessitated in order to capture the wide variations
in the parameters of a low order linear model. The
enhanced estimation scheme is used in conjunc-
tion with a standard linear generalised predictive
 Industrial Applicationsof Self-TuningControl
controller and it is shown that the approach pro-
vides a superior performance when compared to a
well-tuned PID strategy for the same test con-
ditions. In the second case use is made of an
extended bilinear form of the generalised predic-
tive controller which is implemented in conjunc-
tion with a standard recursive least-squares pro-
cedure, supplemented with cautions least squares,
to accommodate the additional bilinearity within
the model structure.
Self-tuning control provides potential exploitable
benefits for a wide range of industrial process ap-
plications. However, for all but the simplest of
systems, the full benefit of the resulting schemes
can only be realised through the refinement and
tailoring of the algorithms for specific industrial
applications.
Acknowledgements: The authors wish to acknowl-
edge the support of their colleagues at the fol-
lowing collaborating organisations: British Gas
plc., Gas Research Centre, Loughborough, UK;
British Gas plc., West Midlands Industrial and
Commercial Dept., Solihull, UK; ETSU on behalf
of the Energy Efficiency Office, Harwell, UK; Eu-
rotherm Controls Ltd., Worthing, UK and Inco
Alloys Ltd., Hereford, UK.
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