Robust fractional-order PID controller assisted by active disturbance rejection control for the first-order plus time-delay systems

Time-delay characteristics of various industrial processes may degrade the stability and dynamic performance of the control systems. Aiming at the problems of the existing methods in dealing with the time delay plant, a modified fractional-order proportional-integral-derivative (FOPID) controller for the first-order plus time-delay (FOPTD) system is developed. Assisted by a modified active disturbance rejection control (ADRC) scheme with increased observer bandwidth, the proposed FOPID controller inherently obtains good robustness to time-delay uncertainties and external disturbances. In addition, taking advantage of the fractional-order operator, the proposed controller can provide larger stability margin over the proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller. By suitably establishing the relation between ADRC and FOPID controller parameters, the proposed controller can be analytically tuned based on the common design indices. A practical tuning guideline is developed according to frequency-domain characteristic analysis, making the proposed controller more acceptable to industrial application. The performance of the ADRC-based FOPID controller is tested by the control simulation of some typical FOPTD systems and a diesel engine speed regulation system. The efficiency of the ADRC-based FOPID controller is demonstrated by the comparisons with some existing controllers.