Article

Transactions of the Institute of

Measurement and Control
A new robust weight update for 1–13
Ó The Author(s) 2018

cerebellar model articulation Article reuse guidelines:

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DOI: 10.1177/0142331218807740
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application to transcritical organic

rankine cycles

J. Samiuddin, B. Badkoubeh, M. Sadeghassadi, J.K. Pieper and

C.J.B. Macnab

Abstract
This work proposes modifications to the adaptive update law for a cerebellar model articulation controller (CMAC) and develops a model of a transcriti-
cal organic rankine cycle (ORC) to test it on. Owing to the local nature of its basis functions, the CMAC exhibits more weight drift (overlearning) than
other types of neural networks, and practical applications have been restricted to systems without persistent oscillations of the inputs. The proposed
solution to this problem here involves identifying a set of weights that is the best found so far in the training, and keeps the weights from drifting too far
from these best weights. The method results in uniformly ultimately bounded signals, established through Lyapunov analysis. To show the improved train-
ing algorithm now allows the CMAC to control more general systems, it is applied to the control of a transcritical ORC. Part of the contribution of this
paper also includes developing a model to describe the behaviour of a supercritical fluid in the ORC evaporator. The control method is compared with
proportional–integral control, where the controls have to provide robustness to fluctuations and step changes in heat source temperatures.

Keywords
Cerebellar model articulation controller, direct adaptive control, parameter drift, bursting, organic rankine cycle

Introduction deadzone (Egardt, 1979), leakage (Ioannuou and Kokotovic,

Organic rankine cycles (ORCs) can create electricity from
low-temperature heat sources, such as waste heat (industrial
exhaust or industrial water outflows), geothermal sources,
biomass heating, etc. ORCs work on the same general princi-
ples as a traditional boiler–turbine system, but using an
organic fluid with a low boiling temperature instead of H2 O.
They represent an important green technology for reducing
pollution and carbon emissions. However, owing to the
small-scale nature of ORCs, suboptimal operation may not
be economically viable; it is important to find nonlinear con-
trol algorithms that can produce the most power possible
even as the temperature of the heat source fluctuates. In this
paper we show that neural-adaptive control represents a pro-
mising approach.
The cerebellar model articulation controller (CMAC)
holds some particular advantages over other types of neural
networks in control systems applications, converging much
quicker than a multi-layer perceptron (Taniguchi and Lang,
1993) and handling many more inputs than a radial basis
function (RBF) network. However, the CMAC has greater
tendency to overlearn: in a direct-adaptive control this means
continued weight drift can lead to the bursting phenomenon.
Traditional robust adaptive control uses update modifications
such as adaptive-parameter projection (Egardt, 1979),
1984) and e-modification (Narendra and Annaswamy, 1987).
Several researchers have tried these traditional robust updates
with CMAC, including deadzone (Chen and Chang, 1996),
leakage (Wu et al., 2006), e-modification (Mai and Wang,
2014) and projection (Rodrı́guez et al., 2013); however, the
issue of poor performance when inputs continue oscillating
was not dealt with in these papers and we find that they result
in too much performance degradation to be practical in the
case of CMAC. Some novel robust modifications have been
proposed that seem to prevent weight drift and still achieve
good performance, but do not come with a proof of stability
(Abdelhameed et al., 2002; Masaud and Macnab, 2014; Wang
et al., 2011; Yang and Han, 2014). This paper proposes a new
robust method to prevent weight drift, and a Lyapunov
framework allows us to guarantee uniformly ultimately
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Corresponding author:
Chris J.B. Macnab, Department of Electrical and Computer
Engineering,University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary,
Alberta, Canada, T2N 1N4.
Email: cmacnab@ucalgary.ca
2 Transactions of the Institute of Measurement and Control 00(0)
bounded signals. In this way, CMAC can now be used for
process control applications.
In our simulation testing, the new method controls a tran-
scritical organic rankine cycle (TORC). We develop a model
of a TORC because operation in the supercritical region in the
evaporator can improve efficiency (Quoilin et al., 2011). Yet
previous literature has only addressed subcritical ORCs; for
an exhaustive review of proposed strategies the reader is
referred to Zhang et al. (2018). Zhang et al. (2012) presented a
multi-variable control strategy by incorporating a model-
based linear quadratic regulator (LQG) with a proportional–
integral (PI) controller, using a 4 3 4 multi-input, multi-output
(MIMO) strategy. Zhang et al. (2013) proposed a generalized
predictive control (GPC) strategy that does not require previ-
ous knowledge of a linear state space model. Soon afterwards,
Zhang et al. (2014) designed a constrained model predictive
control (MPC) for a subcritical ORC that uses a 3 3 3 MIMO
strategy. Quoilin et al. (2011) used a simplified model without
multivariable interactions and then designed a decentralized
single-input, single-output (SISO) PI controller; our current
work also follows this decentralized strategy, but with differ-
ent input–output pairings. We argue that our adaptive strat-
egy is more realistic and practical than model-based controls,
because ORCs are not only difficult to model but parameters
will change over time. We also posit that our following-waste-
heat strategy is more realistic and practical than the following-
electric-load strategy used in some of the above papers,
because ORCs cannot reasonably be expected to provide a
given load as a traditional high-power boiler system can;
ORCs are typically low-power systems that need to provide
maximum power at all times to have even the chance of eco-
nomic viability (to recover capital and maintenance costs).
The current work looks at developing a control system for
a TORC that can compensate for unknown or variable nonli-
nearities in the system while remaining robust to distur-
bances. The method follows from that initially presented in
our conference paper (Samiuddin et al., 2017). We use adap-
tive CMACs, with novel weight updates, in a decentralized
control scheme. The resulting control does not require knowl-
edge of the system parameters, can compensate for slowly-
varying disturbances, and will remain robust to bounded
time-varying disturbances. The advantage of the proposed
method for ORCs compared with those outlined in the previ-
ous paragraph include compensation for nonlinearities, adap-
tation to changing heat-source temperature, and application
to TORC: a combination that should ultimately result in
more energy production. Compared with Samiuddin et al.
(2017), we have more fully described the proposed control,
provided theorems/proofs for the control laws, and have
added a step-disturbance rejection test. In simulation, the
proposed control outperforms PI control in setpoint tracking
and disturbance rejection in terms of both control perfor-
mance and overall energy production.
Background
CMAC
The CMAC is a type of nonlinear approximator, capable of
uniform approximation of nonlinear functions. It is was
developed by James Albus in 1972 (Albus, 1975b); although
it was the first type of neural network capable of nonlinear
approximation, it did not become widely appreciated until
shown to be useful for robotics applications (Miller et al.,
1987). Note that it can also be used to define membership-
function domains in a fuzzy approximator (Jou, 1992; Nie
and Linkens, 1994; Ozawa et al., 1992). Many contemporary
researchers still utilize CMAC for nonlinear adaptive control
in a wide variety of applications, including voice coil motors
(Lin and Li, 2014), mobile robots (Wu et al., 2014), human–
robot systems (Zhang et al., 2015), induction motor drives
(Wang et al., 2015) and hysteresis compensation (Meng et al.,
2016), to name a few. Here we briefly outline operation of
CMAC, and refer the reader to Lewis et al. (1998) and Brown
and Harris (1994) for detailed descriptions of CMAC opera-
tion and algorithmic implementation.
The CMAC local basis-function domains, or cells, are
hypercubes indexed by input vector xin 2 Rn (Albus, 1975b).
The hybercube cells are arranged in M offset arrays
(Figure 1). Like RBF networks the output is a weighted sum
of basis functions, and computational efficiency stems from
only having to calculate the Mactivated weights
X
M
^f (xin ) = G i (xin )wi = G(xin )w ð1Þ
i=1
with activated basis functions G 2 R1 3 M and activated
weights w 2 RM .
The original CMAC algorithm uses binary activations, but
to achieve continuous outputs we utilize spline basis functions
within the cells (Figure 2, where only the activated basis func-
tions are illustrated). We also normalize these basis functions
in the output, which makes the CMAC equivalent to a fuzzy
encoding/decoding scheme with the normalized basis func-
tions interpreted as fuzzy membership functions with truth
values between 0 and 1.
The CMAC differs significantly from most other types of
nonlinear approximators in that it uses local basis functions.
The local cells allow the CMAC to achieve both real-time
computational efficiency and fast training at the same time,
whereas typical global basis function networks result in a
trade-off between those two measures However, the local
nature of the cells also results in more weight drift (overlearn-
ing) compared with other types of nonlinear approximators,
Figure 1. Example CMAC cell structure with two inputs and three
arrays.
Samiuddin et al.
Figure 2. The activated spline basis functions in a two-input CMAC
with three array layers. A weighted sum of activated basis functions
provides the output.
Figure 3. ORC with the addition of a recuperator.
because an oscillation of the input between two cells and
across the origin can cause the weights in those cells to drift in
opposite directions. Note the total number of cells is typically
too large to allocate in memory, so a hash-coding scheme is
used to store only (previously) activated weights in physical
memory (Albus, 1975a).
ORC modelling
The schematic of an ORC with recuperator appears in
Figure 3, with points 1–7 labelled on a temperature–entropy
graph in Figure 4. The pump compresses the liquid fluid (1–
2) into a supercritical fluid, which then gets preheated in the
recuperator (2–3). The main heat source further heats the
supercritical fluid in the evaporator (3–4). The valve controls
the mass flow rate of the supercritical fluid (4–5). The fluid
expands inside the expander (turbine) (5–6), which turns a
shaft producing electrical power in a generator. The gas
3
Figure 4. ORC temperature–entropy diagram.
coming out from the expander passes through the other side
of the recuperator where it is precooled (6–7). The condenser
utilizes a fan for further cooling of the fluid into liquid (7–1).
Note that the recuperator reduces the load on the evaporator
and the condenser by mutual heat transfer within the cycle,
increasing efficiency.
We will utilize dynamic models of the heat exchangers
(evaporator, condenser and recuperator) and static models
for the compressor, expander and valve. The dynamic model
allows control design and/or testing. A static version of the
model, with all time derivatives set to zero, enables identifica-
tion of an appropriate setpoint.
Proposed methods for modelling and
controller design
Modelling of TORC
Since a model of a TORC was not available in the literature,
this paper develops a dynamic model of the evaporator suit-
able for control system design. We use the result from
Rasmussen and Alleyne (2004) that uses Leibniz’s equation
to solve an existing set of partial differential equations
(PDEs) for a given heat exchanger to free the model of spatial
dependence. Although others have used Leibniz’s equation to
model heat exchangers working in a subcritical environment,
no one else has used it to model a supercritical evaporator to
the best of the authors’ knowledge.
Possible modelling techniques for a heat exchanger in an
ORC include moving boundary and lumped parameter meth-
ods. The moving boundary technique divides the heat exchan-
ger into several zones; the zone boundaries vary with time
with respect to the current condition of the heat exchanger
(He, 1996; Jensen, 2003; Quoilin, 2011). The lumped para-
meter method uses control volumes with constant boundaries;
a supercritical system will use a single control volume
4 Transactions of the Institute of Measurement and Control 00(0)

Table 1. Symbols.

a Heat transfer coefficient W/(m2 K)

r Density kg/m3
A Cross-sectional area m2
c Specific heat capacity J/(kg K)
h Specific Enthalpy J/kg
L Length m
m_ Mass flow rate kg/s
p or P Pressure Pa
ql Heat flux per length W/m
r Radius m
s Specific Entropy J/(kg K)
Figure 5. Control volume for each region.
t Time s
T Temperature K
x Quality of fluid
(Rasmussen and Alleyne, 2004). We use moving boundaries zl Length m
to model the subcritical condenser, and lumped parameters to m Opening of valve {0,1}
model both the supercritical evaporator and subcriti- Xpp Capacity fraction of pump {0,1}
cal + supercritical recuperator. In the recuperator, the work- Nfan Condenser fan speed rpm
ing fluid is in the subcritical region on one side where it is in
low pressure and in the supercritical region on the other side
where it is in high pressure (Figure 3). Assuming there is no
Table 2. Subscripts.
pressure drop in the fluid flow between elements, the
dynamics of the evaporator imposes the higher pressure while a Ambient
the condenser imposes the lower pressure (He, 1996; Jensen,
2003; Quoilin, 2011). A, B Points (Positions)
For a control volume as shown in Figure 5, the mass bal- c Condenser/Cold side
ance equation is ev Evaporator
g Saturated vapor
" Z #
h Hot side
d zl, B dzl, A dzl, B
A r dz + rA  rB = m_ A  m_ B ð2Þ i Inner
dt zl, A dt dt in Inlet
int 1 Interface between superheated region and two-phase region
and the energy balance is int 2 Interface between two-phase region and sub-cooled region
" Z # is Isentropic
d zl, B dp dzl, A dzl, B l Saturated liquid
A rh dz  (zl, B  zl, A ) + rA hA  rB hB n Nominal
dt zl, A dt dt dt
o Outer
= m_ A hA  m_ B hB + ql (zl, B  zl, A ) out Outlet
r Recuperator
ð3Þ
sf Heat source
sp Setpoint
Note that Tables 1 and 2 list definitions of all our symbols
w Wall
and subscripts, respectively. wf Working fluid
To deal with the supercritical nature of the ORC, we need
to develop a model for the evaporator. As the fluid enters
and leaves the evaporator in the supercritical form, we use a
single fluid region (Figure 6). With constant zl, A and zl, B (2) dTw, ev
becomes cw rw Aw, ev = 2pri, ev awf, ev (Twf, ev  Tw, ev )
dt ð6Þ
   + 2pro, ev ao, ev (Tsf  Tw, ev )
drev dPev 1 drev dhin, ev dTout, ev
Aev Lev + + cout, ev = m_ in, ev  m_ out, ev
dPev dt 2 dhev dt dt
We ignore the dynamics of the heat source for modelling
ð4Þ purposes, although in reality it is slowly varying.
The modelling of the rest of the components (including
and (3) becomes condenser, pump and expander) follows standard methods,
       presented in full in our previous work (Samiuddin et al.,
1 dr dhin, ev dTout, ev dr dPev
Aev Lev rev + hev ev + cout, ev + hev ev  1 2017). The resulting overall model contains 13 states
2 dhev dt dt dPev dt
= m_ in, ev hin, ev  m_ out, ev hout, ev + 2pri, ev Lev awf, ev (Tw, ev  Twf, ev )
x = ½L1 , L2 , Pc , Tout, c , Tw, 1 , Tw, 2 , Tw, 3 ,
ð5Þ ð7Þ
Pev , Tout, ev , Tw, ev , hc, out , hh, out , Tw, r T
The energy balance of the wall of the evaporator is
The inputs for the model are
Samiuddin et al. 5

= f1, j (y, Tsf, n ) + f2, j (x, y, Tsf, n )  gj, j uj

X X
 gi, j ui (t  T )  gi, j (ui (t)  ui (t  T )) ð15Þ
i6¼j i6¼j
X
= f1, j (y, Tsf, n )  gi, j ui (t  T ) + D(t)  gj, j uj ð16Þ
i6¼j

where T is the time period of the CMAC discrete control sig-

nal and D contains unmeasurable disturbances (including
subsystem interactions). In order to design the decentralized
control we assume

jD(t)j\Dmax for all t ð17Þ

Figure 6. Schematic of the evaporator. where Dmax is a positive constant. Note that the other terms
(in addition to D(t)) depend on measured variables and can be
u = ½m, Xpp , Nfan T ð8Þ accounted for by the CMAC adaptive control.
The output error is
where 0 ł m ł 1 is the opening of the valve, 0 ł Xpp ł 1 is the
capacity fraction of the pump and Nfan is the speed of the con- zj = yj  yj, sp ð18Þ
densing fan in revolutions per minute. The state-space equa-
where yj, sp is the jth value of the current set point. A control
tion is
that can drive the ORC system towards its desired working
x_ = f(x, Tsf ) + g(x, Tsf )u ð9Þ condition is
where f() and g() contain nonlinear terms. The measured out-
uj = uj, n + Duj ð19Þ
puts are
y = ½Pev , Tout, ev , Tout, c 0 ð10Þ where Duj is the CMAC-based control

where Pev is the pressure in the evaporator, Tout, ev is the outlet Duj = Gj (q)^
wj + Kj zj ð20Þ
temperature of the evaporator and Tout, c is the output of the
condenser. where Kj is a positive constant control gain. Note the CMAC
is capable of approximating all unknown linear and nonlinear
CMAC adaptive control terms that depend on measurable signals in a region D. Thus,
the CMAC inputs must be
The control strategy uses three decentralized SISO loops with
three control inputs (manipulated variables) matched to three qj = ½ Pev Tout, ev Tout, c Tsf m(t  T ) Xpp (t  T ) Nfan (t  T) 0
outputs (controlled variables) as
ð21Þ
m ! Pev ð11Þ
To make the control adaptive, one can apply the e-modifica-
Xpp ! Tout, ev ð12Þ tion weight update law
Nfan ! Tout, c ð13Þ
^_ j = bj (G0j zj  njzj j^
w wj ) ð22Þ
which is justified for the particular model in this paper using
a relative gain array (RGA) analysis (described later). Three where (typically) the weights begin at zero.
CMAC adaptive controls will be applied to the three control Theorem 1. For the system described by (16) and (18), under
loops. Because stability will be established for each control condition (17), if the region of CMAC uniform approximation
loop independently, technically this would be considered a D is chosen large enough, then applying CMAC control (19)
decentralized SISO approach. However, each CMAC will be and (20) and CMAC weight updates (22) results in semi-
given full state information, so that in practice the CMACs globally uniformly ultimately bounded (SGUUB) signals (zj
will end up compensating for much of the dynamic cross- ^ j ) in D.
and w
coupling in the MIMO system. The proof of Theorem 1 appearing in Appendix A uses an
The steady-state inputs uj, n and corresponding steady-state adaptive control Lyapunov function
outputs yj, n , for j = 1, 2, 3, define a nominal setpoint.
For control design purposes, we assume g(x, Tsf ) from (9) 1 2 1 T
is constant (in practise it changes very little). In this case, ele- Vj = zj + ~ w
w ~j ð23Þ
2gj 2bj j
ments of g are replaced by constants gi, j and the dynamics of
the jth SISO subsystem becomes where w~ j = wj  w
^ j is the weight estimation error (wj is a set
X of unknown ideal constant weights).
y_ j = f1, j (y, Tsf, n ) + f2, j (x, y, Tsf, n )  gj, j uj  gi, j ui ð14Þ Using e-modification (22) is not the only method for pro-
i6¼j viding robustness and preventing bursting in adaptive control.
6 Transactions of the Institute of Measurement and Control 00(0)
The method of parameter projection is often used (Egardt,
1979), and we introduce it here because our proposed method
will use a similar technique. A simple form of projection for
neural networks operates on each weight individually
8 ified weight update keeps the weight close to a best
<0 if zj . 0 and w
^ j = wmax
^_ j = 0
w if zj \0 and w^ j =  wmax ð24Þ
: b G0 z otherwise
j j j
where wmax is a known maximum value of the ideal weight,
which would have to be identified using either model knowl-
edge or extensive pretraining. The main idea is that w
^ j = wmax
implies w~ ł 0 and w ^ j =  wmax implies w~ ø0. Although a
complete proof is beyond the scope of this paper, note that
applying (19), (20) and (24) in the disturbance-free, ideal-
neural-network case ensures the time derivative of (23) is
8
> 2
~ j =gj  Kj z2j ł 0 if zj . 0 and w
^ j = wmax
< zj w
_ 2 2 as measured over the cell’s domain plus three subsequent cell
V = zj w~ j =gj  Kj zj ł 0 if zj \0 and w ^ j =  wmax ð25Þ
>
: K z2 ł 0
j j otherwise
resulting in a negative-semi-definite derivative and a guaran-
tee of stability. The practical difficulty of applying parameter-
projection is that persistent disturbances usually result in the
weights reaching their imposed bound, making the update
bj G0j zj irrelevant to the ultimate performance.
Novel solution for weight update design to prevent
bursting
We find the update (22) leads to a large trade-off between sta-
bility and performance owing to the problem of overlearning
in the CMAC, i.e. choosing n large enough to prevent weight
drift leads to worse performance than with PI control. The
other popular robust modification of deadzone requires
weight updates to stop in the region jzj j\dj, max =Kj , but
because dj, max includes the very large disturbances in the heat
source the deadzone would be extraordinarily large. Thus, we
propose a novel method for preventing weight update that
achieves high performance while halting weight drift.
The proposed method uses two CMACs in parallel, a
robust CMAC Gj (q)^ wj and a performance CMAC Gj (q)^pj and
the control output becomes
Duj = Gj (q)^
wj + Gj (q)^pj + Kj zj ð26Þ
The subscript j is omitted in the rest of this section without
loss of generality. The robust CMAC updates with e-modifi-
cation (22) at all times, with a conservative value of n, i.e. a
value of n that is large enough to prevent weight drift but
would reduce performance if only the robust CMAC con-
trolled the system. The update for an individual weight in the
performance CMAC, on the other hand, operates according
to these conditions:
A. applies zero update if the weight norm has reached
some imposed bound, pmax ;
B. applies an unmodified weight update, if the weight is
within the imposed bound, pmax , and the total time the
cell has been activated, Ti , is less than a pre-identified
critical time Tc ;
C. applies a modified weight update if the weight is
within the imposed bound and Ti øTc , where the mod-
weight (bi ) identified so far;
or, mathematically,
8
<0 if k ^p k = pmax
^p_ i = bGi z if k ^p k \pmax and Ti \Tc
:
b½Gi z + hjzi j(bi  ^pi ) otherwise
ð27Þ
where h is a positive constant.
The best weight identified so far (bi ) is that weight that has
resulted in the lowest average error previously in the training,
domains on the same CMAC layer. The rationale for (bi )
based on four cell activations on the same layer is that a sinu-
soidal oscillation of highly related states will occur in a planar
ellipse even in high-dimensional space; a small oscillation
should occur through, at most, four cells. This means the
average error should be measured through a full period of
oscillation of the states. Therefore, the best weight found so
far results in the lowest average error through a full period of
oscillation (and avoids rewarding a weight for reducing the
error in a partial oscillation at the cost of increasing overall
error).
The main ideas behind this strategy are as follows.
A. In the initial training with ^p_ i = bGi z, the performance
CMAC is capable of reducing the error to small val-
ues even as the robust CMAC is training with a large
n in (22).
B. The performance-CMAC weights are bounded using
pmax to guarantee bounded signals.
C. The performance-CMAC weight update is trying to
ensure that the algorithm:
(a) will capture the best performance found during
the training by stopping weight drift when the
performance has reached its peak;
(b) will try to prevent the weights from ever reach-
ing pmax .
Note that applying condition (A) above to bound the
weights differs from traditional parameter projection in two
important ways: (1) the bound pmax does not have to be cho-
sen larger than k p k to guarantee stability, i.e. knowledge of
p is not required; and (2) a persistent disturbance would not
be expected to drive k ^p k to pmax .
Theorem 2. For the system described by (16), (18), under con-
dition (17), if the region of robust-CMAC and performance-
CMAC uniform approximation D is chosen large enough then
applying CMAC control (19), (26), robust-CMAC weight
updates (22), and performance-CMAC weight updates (27)
results in SGUUB signals (zj and w^ j ) in D.
The proof appears in Appendix B.
Samiuddin et al. 7

Results Table 3. Model parameters.

Choosing parameters Lc , Lev 40 m

Lr 10 m
One common critique from industrial practitioners directed
ri, c , ri, ev , ri, r 11 mm
toward adaptive control system techniques is that more para-
ro, c , ro, ev , ro, r 12 mm
meters require tuning than with PI. Here, we endeavour to Ri, ev 55 mm
show that choosing parameters with the proposed method is Ri, r 40 mm
nearly trivial, making industrial adoption much more likely cw 384 J/kg.K
compared with traditional adaptive methods. rw 8960 kg/m3
The first parameter that must be chosen is the critical time V_ max 1:43103 m3 /s
TC when weight updates must be turned off. In traditional hpump 0.6001
adaptive control this would be a difficult parameter to e 0.6163
choose, since using a reasonable value of n in the e-modifica- bv 33106
tion term would result in a short window between the time
the system has reached peak performance and when the
weights start to drift (risking bursting). However, in our pro-
posed method the introduction of a supervisory ‘‘best weight
so far’’ term bi in (27) allows us to increase the robust gain h
in (27) to a relatively large number. This has the practical
effect of slowing the weight drift to a truly tiny rate. The
result is that there is a truly enormous window of time
between the time that peak performance is reached and when
weights would get large enough in magnitude to risk bursting;
thus, it is now straightforward to pick a suitable value of TC
in the proposed method. Our simulations use Tc = 2000 s and
h = 1 3 1010 .
Choice of parameter n in the proposed method, which
weights the e-modification term in the robust weight (22), is
also trivial. As the robust term provides robustness and not
performance, n can just be chosen relatively large, i.e. large
enough to easily prevent weight drift for any given possible
disturbance. Note that choosing n in this way would not be
possible in traditional e-modification since it would ruin per-
formance, but in the proposed method it is the performance Figure 7. Step change in m from 0.4 to 0.45.
CMAC that provides the performance regardless of the out-
put from the robust CMAC. We use n = 1 3 107 .
The parameter pmax in (27) simply exists as a safety mea- and KI =  1:732 3 107 , 0:0062, 0:0062 for the m ! Pev ,
sure in the control. Thus, one would run the system first to Xpp ! Tout, ev , Nfan ! Tout, c loops, respectively.
determine how large in magnitude the best weights become,
and make pmax just a little bit bigger. We would never expect
that this bound ever gets imposed in actual operation if the Model consistency
values of Tc and n have been properly designed (which is easy
as discussed previously), and thus pmax should not ever come The model parameters are listed in Table 3. Without loss of gen-
into play unless very severe and unexpected disturbances erality we select R134a as the working fluid, which exhibits many
affect the system. Thus, we do not actually choose or imple- desired properties without exorbitant cost (Gao et al., 2012).
ment a value for pmax in our simulations in this paper. To demonstrate that the model is reasonable, we observe
For comparison purposes we carefully tune the PI controller the change in some of the core dynamics of the ORC simula-
using the Internal Model Control (IMC) technique (Bequette, tion with respect to changes in the actuator inputs, and then
2003) where the step-response is interpreted as being the result compare them to changes observed in Quoilin (2011). First, a
of a first-order system with time constant t p and gain kp . step change in the opening of the valve (m) occurs from 0.4 to
Specifically, we choose proportional and integral gains 0.45 at 30s, and we note the changes in the evaporating pres-
sure and the outlet temperature of the evaporator (Figure 7);
tp KP the graph shows m decreases both evaporating pressure and
KP = , KI = outlet temperature at the evaporator, consistent with
kp l f tp
(Quoilin, 2011). Second, a step change in the capacity fraction
where lf is a constant parameter that trades off performance of the pump (Xpp ) from 0.4 to 0.45 happens at 30s, and we
for robustness. For our simulations we choose lf so that the evaluate the changes in evaporating pressure and the outlet
closed-loop PI response has as fast a settling time as possible temperature of the evaporator (Figure 8); a step up in Xpp
without overshoot. We tuned three decentralized PI control- decreases outlet temperature at the evaporator while the eva-
lers with resulting KP =  1:734 3 106 , 0:1215, 0:1215 porating pressure increases, again consistent with (Quoilin,
8 Transactions of the Institute of Measurement and Control 00(0)

Table 4. RGA matrix analysis.

in
out n m Xpp Nfan

Pev 0.63409 0.30998 0.055922

Tout, ev 0.30368 0.82525 20.12894
Tout, c 0.062223 20.13524 1.073

Table 5. Nominal operating conditions.

Nominal
value

Bulk temperature of heat source, Tsf 2028 C

Evaporating pressure, y1 = Pev 4:986MPa
Temperature of R134a at outlet of evaporator, y2 = Tout, ev 242o C
Figure 8. Step change in Xpp from 0.4 to 0.45. Temperature of R134a at outlet of condenser, y3 = Tout, c 36o C
Opening of valve, u1 = m 0.45
Capacity fraction of pump, u2 = Xpp 0.42
Condenser fan speed, u3 = Nfan 300rpm

RGA analysis
The TORC is a MIMO system, yet MIMO control designs
typically require a model of the system. On the other hand
model information is not required for SISO controls. RGA
analysis identifies the degree of process interactions between
the control inputs and outputs (Bristol, 1966; Chen and
Seborg, 2002), indicating whether a decentralized control
using several SISO loops is appropriate. The resulting RGA
matrix shows diagonal dominance, justifying our decentra-
lized control strategy (Table 4).
Note that although the PI control and adaptive-CMAC
control in the simulations are designed using a decentralized
strategy, the testing of both PI controls and adaptive-CMAC
controls takes place with the full MIMO system model.
Figure 9. Step change in Nfan from 300 to 500rpm.

2011). Finally, the fan speed (Nfan ) changes from 300 to

500rpm at 30s (Figure 9); the resulting changes in the evapor-
ating pressure and the outlet temperature of the evaporator
are negligible while the change in the outlet temperature of
the refrigerant of the condenser is significantly negative, i.e.
the fan creates cooling which is consistent with our intuitive
understanding.
Please note that the main emphasis and novelty of this
paper is the original contributions to the CMAC adaptive
control method; the ORC model provides us with an indust-
rially relevant, realistic, and complex system for validation of
the control. As the proposed control is adaptive, our simula-
tions provide strong evidence that our control would work in
practice, i.e. the system should be able to adapt to any unmo-
delled or unknown nonlinearity. We also note that the over-
whelming majority of previous CMAC-control papers apply
their methods to noise-free, minimum-phase, closed-loop-
stable mechanical or mechatronic systems (presumably due to
the weight-drift/bursting issues). Application to process con-
trol is a new direction for CMAC.
Choosing the setpoint
Using the static model and nominal operating conditions
(Table 5), we observed how W_ net , Pev , Tout, ev and Tout, c chan-
ged with respect to changes in Tsf (1758C ł Tsf ł 2358C). The
results showed that increasing Tsf increases W_ net , Pev and
Tout, ev , while decreasing Tout, c . This indicates that if Tsf is
growing in magnitude, Pev and Tout, ev should also be allowed
to grow in magnitude and Tout, c should be allowed to decline
in magnitude (to maximize W_ net ). However, the process vari-
ables must remain within safety limits, i.e. we must choose
bounds on the process variables. We choose the upper bounds
for Pev and Tout, ev to be 5 MPa and 2458C respectively, and
the lower bound for Tout, c as 308C. These values define the
setpoint (sp) for the control.
Disturbance rejection
In practice, the heat source will not have a constant tempera-
ture. Ideally, the controller should maximize recovery of waste
heat by adapting to the fluctuations in the heat source while
Samiuddin et al.
Figure 10. Variation in heat source temperature.
Figure 11. Net power output for disturbance rejection test.
Figure 12. Variation in control inputs under the influence of
disturbance.
keeping the TORC process variables at desired levels. The
first simulation tests the controller’s ability to react to random
fluctuations of Tsf (Figure 10). The results show that the
CMAC adaptive control outperforms PI (Figure 13). The var-
iations in the control inputs are within the allowable ranges
regardless of variation in Tsf (Figure 12); note owing to a high
degree of nonlinearity the sensitivity of outputs to inputs is
very high (Figures 6 and 7) and, thus, slight changes in inputs
lead to significant changes in output values. The net power
produced by the adaptive CMAC remains higher throughout
time compared with the PI controller (Figure 11).
Note that the CMAC controller is not pretrained. We use
a direct-adaptive control approach, where all weights in the
CMAC start at values of 0 and training occurs entirely on-
line. The idea is that the adaptive-CMAC control will be able
9
Figure 13. Setpoint tracking under the influence of disturbance.
Figure 14. RMS error convergence for disturbance rejection test.
to control the system in a stable manner immediately, and
performance will improve over the long term as the system
encounters similar disturbances repetitively, and Figure 14
shows the rate of performance improvement when an identi-
cal disturbance repeats. The performance results show the
CMAC performance after 568 training trials. The perfor-
mance weights also converge after this much training (Figure
15). The root-mean-square (RMS) error includes errors in all
three output channels together.
Step-disturbance rejection
The heat source temperature (Tsf ) may move away from its
nominal value, but this shift in value may not last long and
this shift can be simulated in the form of a step disturbance.
In such a scenario, the controller has to be effective in cancel-
ling the step change in Tsf by treating it as a disturbance, oth-
erwise this change will lead to a higher magnitude deviation
from the setpoint (bringing about safety concerns mainly
owing to a significant increase in pressure). In addition, a sig-
nificant decrease in pressure may result in a change in the
region of the working fluid inside the evaporator, i.e. super-
critical to subcritical. To test the effectiveness of the adaptive
CMAC, tests introduce a step disturbance of an additional
108C in Tsf from t = 50 to 100 seconds. The CMAC adaptive
control outperforms the PI control (Figure 16). The control
10 Transactions of the Institute of Measurement and Control 00(0)

Figure 15. Behaviour of performance weights and robust weights in

CMAC for disturbance rejection.

Figure 17. Variation in control inputs under the influence of step

disturbance.

Figure 18. Net power for step-disturbance rejection.

Figure 16. Setpoint tracking under the influence of step disturbance.

inputs remain within acceptable limits (Figure 17). The net

power produced by the adaptive CMAC is also higher Figure 19. RMS error convergence for step disturbance rejection test.
throughout compared with the PI controller (Figure 18).
The previous results for the step disturbance rejection test
show the CMAC performance after 133 training trials, which
is how long it takes the CMAC to converge for the step dis-
turbance rejection test (Figure 19). The performance weights
and robust weights also converge after this much training
(Figure 20).
In summary, the adaptive CMAC outperforms the PI con-
troller in both tests, showing its setpoint tracking ability
despite disturbance (Table 6, Table 7 and Table 8). The adap-
tive CMAC also accumulates more net energy ðEnet =
R totaltime
0 W_ net dtÞ as output over the period of time for both
tests (Table 9), which is the ultimate objective of the ORC.

Comparison to traditional robust control

The previous simulations used n = 1 3 107 and Figure 20. Behaviour of performance weights and robust weights in
h = 1 3 1010 for parameters in proposed robust weight CMAC for step disturbance rejection.
Samiuddin et al. 11

Table 6. RMS error for Pev (Pa).

Disturbance rejection Step disturbance rejection

CMAC 98.3482 464.2557

PI 8559 17483

Table 7. RMS error for Tout, ev (8C).

Disturbance rejection Step disturbance rejection

CMAC 0.0011 0.0093

PI 0.0774 0.1594

Table 8. RMS error for Tout, c (8C).

Disturbance rejection Step disturbance rejection

CMAC 0.00054 0.0011

PI 0.0052 0.0164

Figure 21. Weight drift when using e-modification only, without

proposed method.
Table 9. Net energy (MJ) comparison between adaptive-CMAC and PI
controller
proposed controller. The proposed controller outperformed
Disturbance rejection Step disturbance rejection PI while keeping the process variables within acceptable
ranges, despite variations in the heat source temperature and
CMAC 1.3500 1.1417 setpoint. The proposed controller exhibited reasonable and
PI 1.3312 1.1295 feasible variations in the control inputs.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

updates (22) and (27), respectively. If one uses traditional e-
modification (22) with n = 1 3 108 , then the performance is
nearly identical (and, thus, not plotted) but the weights con-
tinue to drift at a linear rate (Figure 21). The continued
weight drift will eventually lead to bursting behaviour, which
would be catastrophic in the case of an ORC. Thus, the pro-
posed method uses a conservative value of n = 1 3 107 for
the robust CMAC which easily halts the weight drift, yet
(with the addition of the performance CMAC) no perfor-
mance is sacrificed to achieve this stability.
Note the value of h = 1 3 1010 is simply chosen large
enough so that the value of the magnitude of the performance
weights never actually reaches the imposed bound pmax , so
that the imposed bound remains simply to ensure stability
and is not relevant to the observed performance of the system.
Conclusions
In this paper, a control-oriented model for a TORC was
developed and its primary control tasks were briefly outlined.
A decentralized adaptive CMAC scheme was proposed. A
modified update rule for CMAC was developed, that prevents
weight drift and overlearning without sacrificing perfor-
mance. A Lyapunov analysis established uniformly ultimately
bounded signals for the proposed update. Three different
tests were performed to evaluate the performance of the
The authors declared no potential conflict of interest with
respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of
this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial
support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of
this article: This work was supported by the Natural
Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
through a Collaborative Research and Development Grant
(number 451433 - 2013) and by our industrial partner
Genalta Power.
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Appendix A
Proof of Theorem 1. Consider the (positive-definite) direct
adaptive control Lyapunov function
1 2 1 T
Vj = z + ~ w
w ~j ð28Þ
2gj j 2bj j
~ j = wj  w
where w ^ j is the weight estimation error (wj is a set
of unknown ideal constant weights).
Without loss of generality, for the rest of this proof we
drop the single subscript j and assume that y_ sp = 0. The
Lyapunov time derivative becomes
Samiuddin et al. 13
" #
X n k wk2
_V = 1 z f1 (y, Tsf )  gi, j ui (t  T ) + D  gj (un + Du) dz =
dmax
+ ð36Þ
gj i6¼j
K 4K
1 0_ rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
 ~w
w ^ ð29Þ kwk dmax k wk2
b dw = + + ð37Þ
P 2 n 4
 
f1 (y, Tsf )  i6¼j gi, j ui (t  T )
=z + D  un  G^
w  Kz + d(t) Thus, if D has been chosen larger than (includes) Lyapunov
gj
1 ~0 _ surface V (z, k w
~ k ) = V (dz , dw ), the signals (jzj,k w
~ k) are
 ww ^ SGUUB. The uniform ultimate bound given is given by
b
Lyapunov surface V (z, k w~ k ) = V (dz , dw ). h
ð30Þ

The terms that can be approximated by the CMAC are

P
Appendix B
f1 (y, Tsf )  i6¼j gi, j ui (t  T )
 un = G(q)w + e(x) ð31Þ Proof of Theorem 2. Consider the new Lyapunov function for
g
subsystem j (omitting subscript j)
with k e(x) k \emax for all x 2 D where emax is a positive con-
stant bound on the approximation error and D  R4 is the 1 2 1 1
region of approximation. Note q was defined in (21). Now, V= z + w~0 w
~ + p~0 ~p ð38Þ
2g b b
the time derivative of equation (28) gives the following
Using control (26), updates to w ^ (22) and (27) for the ^p
1 _ updates, the Lyapunov derivative becomes
w + e + D  Kz)  w~0 w
V_ = z(G~ ^ ð32Þ
b

^_ =b)
=  Kz2 + z(e + D) + w~0 (G0 z  w ð33Þ ~ + hjzj~p0 B(^p  b)
V_ =  Gz2 + z(e + D) + njzjw~0 w  njzjw~0 w
ð39Þ
Using the e-modification update law from equation (22)
gives the following where B has elements Bi along the diagonal. The bound is

V_ =  Kz2 + z(e + D) + njzjw~0 w  njzjw~0 w

~, ð34Þ V_ \jzj(  Gjzj + dmax + n k w ~ k2 + 4hp2max )
~ kk w k n k w
V_ \jzj(  Kjzj + dmax + n k w ~ 2 k ),
~ kk w k n k w ð35Þ ð40Þ

where dmax is a positive constant that bounds je + Dj based Thus, all signals are SGUUB (in region D) since a bound on
on (17) and (31). By completing the square in (35) one can k ~p k is imposed and V_ \0 if either jzj or k w
~ k grows large
show that V_ \0 in region D when either jzj . dz or k w
~ k . dw enough. h
where