Tuning GMC controllers using the ATV procedure

A procedure has been developed for applying auto tune variation (ATV) tuning [Astrom and Hagglund, Automaric Tuning of PID Controllers, ISA (1988)] to generic model control (GMC) controllers [Lee and Sullivan, Generic model control, Computers Chem. Engng 12, 573 (1988)]. A nonlinear two input/two output test problem, which resembles an exothermic CSTR, and a distillation column test case have been used to evaluate the effectiveness of this new tuning procedure. For each case, the GMC controller tuned with the ATV tuning procedure was compared with a GMC controller with optimal tuning. It was typically found that the optimally tuned controller had an integral absolute error (IAE) that was approximately 20% lower than the IAE for the ATV tuned controller. In addition, the CSTR-like case was used to evaluate the effect of process/model mismatch on the effectiveness of the proposed tuning procedure.