Adaptive predictive controllers in a nonlinear plant: An experimental and comparative study

Techniques of adaptive predictive control are increasingly in industrial applications due to excellent performance in controlling a variety physical complex, time-varying, and nonlinear systems. In this paper a wind tunnel process, with nonlinear characteristic, is used to evaluate the performance of five predictive controllers: [1], [2], [3], [5], [8]. In addition to the evaluation of servo and regulatory behavior, the control algorithms are also assessed for their robustness point of view, design flexibility and easiness of implementation. Sensitivity of these controllers is studied and experimental results are presented.