Partially decentralized control based on IMC for a benchmark boiler

The boiler systems are multivariable nonlinear processes showing great interactions and input constraints under a wide range of operating conditions. This paper proposes a partially decentralized control (PDC) for the problem of a benchmark boiler under the load and pressure change. The design of partially decentralized controllers is based on the non-square internal model control (IMC) principle, which is applied to design non-square decentralized controllers and that are then transformed to partially decentralized ones. This method combines the advantages of decentralized control and multivariate centralized control, and considers the coupling of the plants, thus good performance can be achieved. The proposed method is applied to the boiler model proposed in an IFAC Conference, and the controller used in PID form. Simulation results show that partially decentralized control can achieve better performance than the existing decentralized control, and compared with the multivariable centralized control, it has a simpler structure and is easier to implement and tune, so it is of great practical application potential.