A Mixed Logical Dynamic Model Predictive Control approach for handling industrially relevant transportation constraints

Model Predictive Control (MPC) offers an attractive way to systematically address uncertainty in demand forecasts, factory execution, or external supply and effectively mitigate potential under-damped responses in the closed-loop system. However, other practical concerns may preclude the use of classical formulations of MPC. Of particular importance is the ability to ship material through auxiliary shipping lanes when either material is not available from the primary node, or shipping capacity is constrained in the primary shipping lane. To meet unforecasted demand, a controller must also make judicious use of priority shipping. The inclusion of Mixed Logical Dynamics (MLD) into the MPC formulation allows these logical decisions to be made in a systematic way, without requiring input from the user in real-time. In this paper, an MLD extension is made to a state-space MPC formulation to deal effectively with practical shipping considerations. Performance of the proposed approach is demonstrated in a number of realistic scenarios.