Experience with model predictive control in the undergraduate laboratory

A model predictive control experiment for an undergraduate senior laboratory course is outlined in this article. The process under study is a continuous stirred-tank heater and the control objective is to control the water temperature in the tank. A discrete, dynamic, physical model of this process is used in the controller, The model predictive control algorithm is a single-move, analytical controller that matches the model predicted temperature to a reference temperature trajectory at a single time in the future. A series of different control experiments using this algorithm are described and examples of each are presented. (c) 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.