Control of a Two Layered Coupled Tank: Application of IMC, IMC-PI and Pole-Placement PI Controllers

Abstract

Proportional Integral Derivative (PID) controller remains the most widely and applicable type of controller used for process control applications in industries till date. However the efficacy of this controller lies in the tuning technique used in the determining its parameters. In this paper, we adopt a two layer coupled tank system whose transfer function was obtained via mathematical modeling. Thereafter the comparison of the performance of the PID controller based on two different tuning techniques – pole placement and internal model control (IMC) technique and that of another controller – the IMC controller was made. This is aimed at determining which tuning technique and control strategy produces a better performance on the basis of the transient response and Integral Absolute Error (IAE) for the system. The design and simulation is being carried out using the MatLab/ Simulink Toolbox and the simulation results shows that the IMC and IMC-tuned PI controller has an improved performance over the Pole-Placement-PI controller.