Process Control

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Introduction
1. The term process indicates a set up or a plant that we want to control. Eg: unit of chemical
plant (say, a distillation column), or a manufacturing system (say, an assembly shop), or a
food processing industry and so on.
2. We may want to automate the process; we may also like to control certain parameters of the
system output (say, level of a tank, pressure of steam etc.).
3. There are two types of control; sequential and continuous.
4. Sequential control: where the control action is carried out in a sequence.
5. E.g. Automated manufacturing system, where the assembly of parts is carried out in a
sequence (on a conveyor line). It is open loop and no feedback to controller is required.
Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) is often used to carry out these operations.

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Introduction
1. Continuous control: where the control action needed is continuous in nature and precise
control of the output variable is required.
2. E.g. the drum level control of a boiler. Here, the water level of the drum has to be maintained
within a small band, in spite of variations of steam flow rate, steam pressure etc.
3. This type of control is sometimes called modulating control, as the control variable is
modulated to keep the process variable at a constant value. Feedback principle is used for
these types of control.

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Closed loop Process

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Closed loop Process
1. In general a process may have several input variables and several output variables. But only
one or two (at most few) of the input variables are used to control the process. These inputs,
used for manipulating the process are called manipulating variables
2. The other inputs those are left uncontrolled are called disturbances. Few outputs are
measured and fed back for comparison with the desired set values. The controller operates
based on the error values and gives the command for controlling the manipulating variables.
3. Types of closed loop process:
◦ Single-Input-Single-Output (SISO) process.
◦ Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output (MIMO) process.

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SISO Example
•It is a tank containing certain liquid with an inflow line
fitted with a valve V1 and an outflow line fitted with
another valve V2.
•We want to maintain the level of the liquid in the tank; so
the measured output variable is the liquid level h.
•There are two variables, which affect the measured output
- the liquid level. These are the regulating of the valves V1
and V2.
•The valve V1 is in the inlet line, and it is used to vary the
inflow rate, depending on the level of the tank. So we can
call the inflow rate as the manipulating variable.
• The outflow rate (or the throttling of the valve V2 ) also
affect the level of the tank, but that is decided by the
demand, so not in our hand. We call it a disturbance (or
sometimes as load).

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Mathematical model
• The process can be modeled using linear differential equation

•Where q is the deviation in inflow rate from steady state value, h is the deviation in height from
steady state value, A is cross sectional area of tank, Hs is steady state height of the tank and C is
a constant
•Thus the transfer function of the process is

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Block Diagram of process representation

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 MIMO Example
•To achieve control of temperature and
humidity in order to maintain an artificial
tropical climate inside a room in winter.
•Fresh cold air is forced inside the room
through a fan.
•Steam is added to the air in order to maintain
the humidity.
•An electric heater is used to increase the
temperature of the room.
•So the control inputs are the steam valve
position θ(t) and the voltage applied to the
heater v(t)
•The measured outputs are room temperature
c(t) and the relative humidity h(t).

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Proportional Control
The basic control loop can be simplified for a single- With the proportional control action only, the
input-single-output (SISO) system as in Fig closed loop system looks like:

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Integral Control

In this case,

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Integral Control
It can be seen that with integral controller, the order of the closed loop system increases by one.
This increase in order may cause instability of the closed loop System, if the process is of higher
order dynamics. Major advantage of this integral control action is that the steady state error due to
step input reduces to zero. But simultaneously, the system response is generally slow, oscillatory
and unless properly designed, sometimes even unstable. The step response of this closed loop
system with integral action is shown

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Proportional Plus Integral (P-I) Control
P-I action provides the dual advantages of fast response due to P-action and the zero steady
state error due to I-action. The error transfer function of the above system can be expressed as:

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P-I Control
The steady state error would be zero for P-I action. Besides, the closed loop characteristics
equation for P-I action is:

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P-I Control
Comparing these two, one can easily observe that, by varying the term Kp, the damping
constant can be increased. So we can conclude that by using P-I control, the steady state error
can be brought down to zero, and simultaneously, the transient response can be improved. The
output responses due to (i) P, (ii) I and (iii) P-I control for the same plant can be compared from
the sketch shown

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Proportional Plus Derivative (P-D) Control
The transfer function of a P-D controller is given by:
P-D control for the process transfer function apparently is not very useful,

since it cannot reduce the steady state error to zero. But for higher order processes, it can be
shown that the stability of the closed loop system can be improved using P-D controller. For this,
let us take up the process transfer function as With proportional control, the
closed loop transfer function is

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P-D Control
The characteristics equation is giving oscillatory response. But with P-D
controller, the closed loop transfer function is:

whose characteristics equation is that will give a stable closed loop

response.

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P-D Control

The step responses of this process with P and P-D controllers are compared

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 Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID)
control
A suitable combination of proportional, integral and derivative actions can provide all the desired
performances of a closed loop system. The transfer function of a P-I-D controller is given by:

The order of the controller is low

 It has universal applicability
 it can be used in any type of SISO system, e.g. linear, nonlinear, time delay etc.
Many of the MIMO systems are first decoupled into several SISO loops and PID controllers are designed for
each loop.
 PID controllers have also been found to be robust, hence wide acceptability for industrial processes.
 However, for proper use, a controller has to be tuned for a particular process; i.e. selection of P,I,D
parameters are very important and process dependent.
 Unless the parameters are properly chosen, a controller may cause instability to the closed loop system.
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 Guideline for selection of controller
mode
1. Proportional Controller:It is simple regulating type; tuning is easy. But it normally
introduces steady state error. It is recommended for process transfer functions having a pole at
origin, or for transfer functions having a single dominating pole; for example with

2. Integral Control: It does not exhibit steady state error, but is relatively slow responding. It is
particularly effective for:
(i) very fast process, with high noise level
(ii) process dominated by dead time
(iii) high order system with all time constants of the same magnitude.

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3. Proportional plus Integral (P-I) Control: It does not cause offset associated with proportional
control. It also yields much faster response than integral action alone. It is widely used for process
industries for controlling variables like level, flow, pressure, etc., those do not have large time
constants.
4. Proportional plus Derivative (P-D) Control: It is effective for systems having large number of
time constants. It results in a more rapid response and less offset than is possible by pure
proportional control. But one must be careful while using derivative action in control of very fast
processes, or if the measurement is noisy (e.g. flow measurement).
5. Proportional plus Integral plus Derivative (P-I-D) Control: It finds universal application. But
proper tuning of the controller is difficult. It is particularly useful for controlling slow variables,
like pH, temperature, etc. in process industries.

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Conclusion
Most of the industrial controllers are P-I-Din nature. The major reasons behind the popularity of
P-I-D controller are its simplicity in structure and the applicability to variety of processes.
Moreover the controller can be tuned for a process, even without detailed mathematical model
of the process. However, proper tuning of the controller parameters requires extensive
experimentation.
Crudely speaking, the desired closed loop performances, such as fast response, zero steady state
error and less overshoot are achieved through incorporation of P,I and D actions respectively.
But the choice of P-D, P-I or P-I-D structure depends on the type of the process we intend to
control. A brief guideline for selection of controller is provided in this lesson.

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