Multivariable adaptive control with hardware-in-the-loop for a drum-type boiler-turbine system

This paper presents a centralized multivariable adaptive decoupling control using hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) for a boiler-turbine system. The boiler-turbine mathematical model is a 3×3 nonlinear strongly-coupled MIMO system with hard constraints. The proposed control strategy employs decoupling technique, gain scheduling with dynamic model linearization, and adaptive PID control with filtered updated gains and anti-windup to improve system response quality. The HIL concept splits the system into two sections, i.e., the simulation of the boiler-turbine model in LabView with graphical user interface (GUI) on PC, and the implementation of the control algorithms on real-time control target as programmable logic controller (PLC). The data exchange between the PC and PLC is provided by an OLE for Process Control (OPC) Server through Ethernet protocol. The synchronization between a real-time controller and a non real-time operating system (PC under Windows) is presented.