Robust Model Predictive Control of Heat Exchanger Network

Heat exchanger optimal operation represents challenging task from the control viewpoint because of the system nonlinearities, varying process parameters, internal and external disturbances and measurement noise. Various robust control strategies were developed for overcoming all these problems. The robust model predictive control (RMPC) represents one of these approaches. It enables to design effective control algorithms for optimization of the control performance as well as to take process uncertainty into account. The possibility to use the RMPC for control of heat exchangers is presented in this paper and three serially connected counter-current heat exchangers represent the controlled process. The efficiency of the presented RMPC algorithm was verified by simulations. Simulations of control were done in the MATLAB-Simulink environment. The results confirmed that using the RMPC led to smaller consumption of the cooling medium in comparison with classical control approaches.