Application of Nonlinear PID Controllerin

Main Steam Temperature Control

GU Jun-jie ZHANG Yan-juan
School of Energy and Power Engineering, School of Energy and Power Engineering
North China Electric Power University North China Electric Power University
Baoding,China Baoding, China
]hangyanjuan0503@163.com

GAO Da-ming
School of Energy and Power Engineering
North China Electric Power University
Baoding,China
Abstract—The fixed parameters in traditional PID controller In this paper, the ideal change relationship between the error
lead to poor performance. In this paper, the ideal change of the control object and the control parameters is analyzed
relationship between the error of the control object and the and nonlinear functions of P, I and D about error are presented
control parameters is analyzed and nonlinear functions are respectively. The change characteristics of the nonlinear
presented to form a nonlinear PID controller. The parameters are functions accord with the ideal change process of the
tuned with the NCD Blockset in Simulink. The nonlinear PID parameters, so the nonlinear PID (NPID) can achieve both
controller is applied to one main steam temperature control good static and dynamic performances and improve the control
system. The simulation results show that the nonlinear PID quality. For there are too many parameters in the NPID and
controller has better performance and robustness than traditional there is no sophisticated tuning method, the NCD Blockset in
linear PID controller. Simulink is used to tune the parameters quickly. The nonlinear
PID controller is applied to one main steam temperature
Keywords-nonlinear PID controller; NCD Blockset; main steam
control system in a supercritical unit. The simulation results
temperature control;
show that the nonlinear PID has better control quality than
ĉ INTRODUCTION traditional linear PID.
Because of its simple structure, stability and strong Ċ THE CHARACTERISTICS OF MAIN STEAM
robustness, PID controller is widely used in metallurgy,
TEMPERATURE CONTROL SYSTEM
chemical industry and power machinery. In traditional PID
control, the linear integration of P, I and D as well as the linear The main steam temperature control is an important segment
mapping between system characteristic change and the output for improving the economical efficiency and maintaining the
of controller leads to the contradiction between response speed safety of the unit in large-scale power plants. The steam tubes
and overshoot. The parameters of nonlinear PID won’t change are long and the steam volume is large so the main steam
once fixed and that will result in the contradictions between temperature is a typical system with large time lag and
static and dynamic performances, tracking of set-point and outstanding inertial behavior. The characteristics of
anti-perturbation㧘 robustness and control performance [1]. thermo-technical object in power plants are closely related
So, to improve the control quality, many scholars use nonlinear with the operating condition of the whole plant and there are
characteristics to modify traditional linear PID controller in many factors that can make the main steam temperature
recent years [2]. change. In steamˈ there is main steam flow which is boiler
load, feed-water temperature, desuperheat water temperature,

978-1-4244-2487-0/09/$25.00 ©2009 IEEE

desuperheat water flow, and so on. In flue gas, there is total
㧔1㧕3roportional gain k p 㧦large proportional control can
gas flow, amount of fuel, the operation manner of burners, the
fouling of the heating surface, and so on. However, the most increase response speed and reduce the steady state error㧘but
important factor is the change of load [3]. The dynamic will lead to oscillation of the system. During the period of 0҅ t
characteristics of main steam temperature due to desuperheat
҅ t1 ,to have quick response speed, k p should be large initially
water disturbance in a 600MW supercritical boiler is shown in
table 1 [4]. and decrease with the reduction of error; during the period

TABLE1ˊTRANSFER FUNCTIONS OF MAIN STEAM TEMPERATURE of t1 ҅ t ҅ t 2 , to enhance the opposite control effect and reduce
DUE TO DESUPERHEAT WATER DISTURBANCE

the overshoot, k p is expected to increase; during the period

Load ˄%˅ Leading section Inertial section
of t 2 ҅ t ҅ t 3 , to reach the steady state soon and don’t cause
37 5.072 1.048
(28s + 1) 2 (56.6 s + 1) 8
large inertia, k p should decrease; during the period of t 3 ҅ t
50 3.067 1.119
(25s + 1) 2 ( 42.1s + 1) 7
҅ t4 , k p is expected to increase gradually. According to the
75 1.657 1.202
(20 s + 1) 2 (27.1s +) 7
above principles, the approximate shape of kp
100 0.815 1.276
(18s + 1) 2 (18.4 s + 1) 6 corresponding to the error is shown in Fig.2 (a) and the

nonlinear function is k p (e(t )) = a p + b p (1 − sec h(c p e(t ))) ; in

ċDESIGN PRINCIPLES OF NONLIEAR

PID CONTROLLER
Using the step response of a common control system, which
is shown in Fig1, the design principles of the gain parameters
in nonlinear PID controller can be analyzed.
the equation, a p , b p , c p are real positive constants; k p is
ranged between a p and a p + b p , and the change rate of
k p depends on c p .

㧔 2 㧕'erivative gain k d : derivative control can suppress

overshoot but slow down the system response speed. During

the period of 0 ҅ t ҅ t1 㧘 k d should increase so that the

overshoot should be suppressed while the response speed

won’t be affected; during t1 ҅ t ҅ t 2 㧘 k d should be increased

to reinforce the opposite control effect and minimize the

t1 t2 t3 t4 overshoot㧧 at t 2 , reduce k d and during the following time

period t 2 ҅ t ҅ t 4 , increase k d again to suppress system

Figure1㧚Step response of a common control system

overshoot. The sign of error change rate should be considered

in kd and the nonlinear function is formulated: 㧔 3 㧕 Integral gain k i 㧦 integral control is favorable for
k d (e (t ), e v (t )) = a d + bd /(1 + c d exp( d d sign (e v (t )) e(t ))) the diminishing the steady state error but will lengthen the
shape of which is shown in Fig. 2(b). In the equation,
transient response. So when error is great, k i should be small
de(t ) is the error change rate;
ev (t ) = a d , bd , c d , d d are real
dt
to prevent oscillation and when error is smaller, k i is
positive constants; k d can change between ad and a d + bd ;
expected to increase to diminish the steady state error quickly.

d d is used to adjust the change rate of k d . In case of abrupt The shape of k i is shown in Fig2(c), its nonlinear function

change of k d caused by variation of sign (ev (t )) 㧘 is k i (e(t )) = ai sec h(ci e(t )) , ai , ci are real positive constants

sign (ev (t )) is substituted by e v (t ) so that k d will change 㧧 k i can change from 0 to ai , the value of ci determines
continuously and smoothly, and the nonlinear function
the change rate of k i .
is k d (e(t )䯸 ev (t )) = a d + bd /(1 + c d exp(d d ev (t )e(t )))

kp kd ki

0 e 0 sign(ev )e 0 e

change curve of k p change curve of k d change curve of ki

Figure 2. Change curve of nonlinear parameters

From the above analysis we can learn that if parameters in initialize them according to the system demand; fix the change
nonlinear functions are proper, the system can respond quickly range of variables.
without overshoot. The gain parameters in nonlinear PID
 Set the time-domain performance specifications of
controller can change with the error, so NPID has betteU
the system, such as settling time, rise time, peak overshoot,
robustness than traditional linear PID.
and steady state error and so on. So the time-domain restraint
Č PARAMETERS TUNING WITH NCD BLOCKSET can be turned to a confined optimization process and then the
parameters can be calculated.
There are 9 parameters in NPID and there is no
sophisticated tuning method. Given the uncertainty in
thermo-technical modeling and external perturbations, it is
hard to find an analytic solution. So the tuning method is
optimized with the NCD Blockset in Simulink in this paper.
The procedure is:
 Determine the Variable Tolerance and Constraint
Tolerance so that the optimization will end when the optimized
variable is smaller than Variable Tolerance and constraint
variable is smaller than Constraint Tolerance.
 Run the optimization program and get the
 Establish the control system diagram in Simulink. parameters.

 Fix the change range of parameters in controller and  Narrowing the time-domain constrict, repeat steps
㧔3㧕㨪㧔5㧕till the system dynamic behavior can’t be improved.
čSIMULATION RESULTS
Using the control method presented in this paper, NPID-P
cascade control system is formed, the results in four typical
loads subjected to unit step input are compared to those of
PID-P control system. The parameters in PID-P control system
are adopted from [4], the interior proportional parameters in
both systems are same, and the control parameters in NPID
which are tuned with NCD are shown in Table 2. From the
simulation results it can be concluded that the control quality
of NPID-P cascade control system is superior to PID-P
obviously, with smaller settling time and no overshoot.

TABLE2. NPID PARAMETERS IN TYPICAL LOADS

load˄%˅ ap bp cp ad bd cd dd ai ci

37 0.894 0.3 0.001 80 25.0575 2.0117 2.4149 0.0023 1.0043

50 0.9981 0.3 0.01 50 25 1.0171 1.001 0.0035 1.4261

75 0.8409 0.3 0.01 25 15.1091 1.9748 2.4868 0.0049 1.2697

100 0.9091 0.6564 0.0582 15 20.0558 2.0625 1.0101 0.0081 1.6506

Figure3. Unit step response in load 100% Figure5. Unit step response in load 50%

Figure4. Unit step response in load 75%. Figure6. Unit step response in load 37%
 The gain and inertia of main steam temperature change with Ď CONCLUSION
the loads and operating conditions, so strong robustness of
To overcome the contradiction between overshoot and
control system is needed. In this paper, simulations are carried
response speed that caused by fixed parameters in traditional
out when gain and time constant change respectively. In
PID, a nonlinear PID method is presented in this paper and the
cascade control system, secondary controller can eliminate
parameters are tuned with the NCD Blockset in Simulink. The
interior perturbation effectively so inertial section is the major
nonlinear PID controller is applied to one main steam
characteristic of the main steam temperature system and its
temperature control system. The simulation results show that
gain and time constant change with the load and operating
the nonlinear PID has better performance and robustness. This
condition, only the time constant and gain of the inertial
method is simple and prone to be adopted in engineering so it
section are considered in this paper. The simulation results
is of great practical value.
when the inertial section time constant and gain in load 75%
increase and decrease by 20% are shown in the figures. It can
be learned that when the characteristics of control object
change, the control quality of NPID-P is superior to PID-P REFERENCES
with better robustness. [1] SU Yu-xin㧘DUAN Bao-yan. A new class of nonlinear PID controller.
Control and Decision㧘Vol.18No.1Jan.2003, pp.126-128.

[2]WANG Wei 㧘ZHANG Jing-tao 㧘CHAI Tian-you. A survey of advanced

PID parameter tuning methods. Acta Automatica Sinica㧘㧘Vol.26No.3. May,
2000. pp. 347-355.

[3]XIA Lei 㧘YUAN Zhen-fu. Investigation on control strategy of main steam

temperature in power plants. Boiler Technology㧘 Vol.38 No.5㧘Sep.,2007㧘
pp. 6-10㧘72.

[4]FAN Yong-sheng㧘XU Zhi-gao,CHEN Lai-jiu .Adaptive fuzzy control of

superheated steam temperature in boilers based on dynamic mechanics
analysis. Proceedings of the CSEE, Vol.17No.1.Jan. 1997㧘pp. 23-28.

[5]LIU Jin-kun. MATLAB simulation of advanced PID control. Beijing㧦

Figure7. Unit step response when parameters
publishing house of electronics industry㧘2004.

increase by 20% in load 75%

Figure8. Unit step response when parameters

decrease by 20% in load 75%