A BACKSTEPPING CONTROL METHOD FOR A NONLINEAR PROCESS.pdfVIP

CIEM 2013 A BACKSTEPPING CONTROL METHOD FOR A NONLINEAR PROCESS - TWO COUPLED-TANKS 1 2 3 Vasile CALOFIR , Valentin TANASA , Ioana FAGARASAN , 4 5 6 Iulia STAMATESCU , Nicoleta ARGHIRA , Grigore STAMATESCU Abstract: The aim of this work is to compute a level backstepping control strategy for a coupled tanks system. The coupled tanks plant is a component included in the water treatment system of power plant s. The nonlinear-model of the process was designed and implemented in Matlab- Simulink. The advantages of the control method proposed is that it takes into consideration the nonlinearity which can be useful for stabilization and a larger operating point with specified performances . The backstepping control method is computed using the nonlinear model of the system and the performance was validated on the physical plant . Keywords: backstepping, nonlinear-model, level tank system, water treatment, process control 1. Introduction The coupled tanks system is a component included in the water treatment plant that is an important part of any power plant especially with the development of smart grids and with the stress of the enviromental issues nowadays. In traditional power plants thermal, hydro, nuclear etc. the water treatment part has the rol to reduce and even eliminate polluting particles such as S, NO, NO , etc.. 2 The level control of the used tanks has to be very precise and efficient . Many processes met in the water treatment / purification station can be modeled as systems with three open reservoirs. To design a controller for maintaining constant level in such tanks, the need of a mathematical model of the plant is required [3],[4]. To obtain the mathematical model of the controlled process may be accomplished by analytical and experimental techniques