Fractional order controller design for 13C separation column

Controller design for an isotope separation column is recognized as a difficult and challenging problem, especially when the controller used is of fractional order. The objective of this work is to find out optimum settings for a fractional Pl^λ controller in order to fulfill three different robustness specifications of design for the compensated system, taking advantage of the fractional order, λ. Since this fractional controller has one parameter more than the conventional PI controller, one more specification can be fulfilled, improving the performance of the system and making it more robust to plant uncertainties, such as gain and time constant changes. For the tuning of the controller, an iterative optimization method has been used based on a nonlinear parametric minimization routine.