An advanced predictive control approach to the ALSTOM gasifier problem

Abstract

Predictive-optimal control is able to deal with many practical control issues, such as guarantees of nominal stability, nominal performance optimization and constraint handling. It is also particularly easy to apply to a system that is well approximated by a linear model such as with this benchmark problem. Here the aim is to illustrate the efficacy of two novel approaches to predictive control. In the first approach the system is first stabilized with a simple control law. The predictive control is then added as an outer-loop optimization for constraint handling. The second approach is computationally more efficient; here constraints are handled by a systematic mixing of two stabilizing control laws.