Leandro Pitturelli, Davide Previtali, Fabio Previdi, Antonio Ferramosca
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
Industrial ovens are pivotal in manufacturing, particularly food processing, electronics, and materials fabrication. In this context, temperature control algorithms must satisfy demanding control specifications, among which: setpoint tracking, disturbance rejection, energy saving, and actuator limitations. Specifically, one of the critical challenges in industrial ovens is achieving a uniform temperature distribution within the oven cavity, especially in the presence of disturbances. This paper focuses on a particular kind of industrial ovens installed in shrink tunnels, which are employed in manufacturing applications for polymeric packaging. In these applications, temperature uniformity is a key factor in determining the quality of the packages resulting from the heat shrinking process, making it a major concern. Consequently, we propose three Model Predictive Control (MPC) strategies for shrink tunnels aimed for temperature uniformity: an MPC for tracking (as a baseline), and two zone-based MPCs that steer the oven temperatures towards either a fixed or an adaptive range rather than a single target point. All control strategies are thoroughly and experimentally validated on a shrink tunnel workbench installed in a manufacturing facility. Specifically, we adopt the Rapid Control Prototyping (RCP) paradigm to speed up controller implementation and performance assessment. Experimental results demonstrate that the zone-based MPC strategies significantly improve the temperature uniformity within the oven cavity compared to the MPC for tracking formulation.
期刊介绍:
Control Engineering Practice strives to meet the needs of industrial practitioners and industrially related academics and researchers. It publishes papers which illustrate the direct application of control theory and its supporting tools in all possible areas of automation. As a result, the journal only contains papers which can be considered to have made significant contributions to the application of advanced control techniques. It is normally expected that practical results should be included, but where simulation only studies are available, it is necessary to demonstrate that the simulation model is representative of a genuine application. Strictly theoretical papers will find a more appropriate home in Control Engineering Practice''s sister publication, Automatica. It is also expected that papers are innovative with respect to the state of the art and are sufficiently detailed for a reader to be able to duplicate the main results of the paper (supplementary material, including datasets, tables, code and any relevant interactive material can be made available and downloaded from the website). The benefits of the presented methods must be made very clear and the new techniques must be compared and contrasted with results obtained using existing methods. Moreover, a thorough analysis of failures that may happen in the design process and implementation can also be part of the paper.
The scope of Control Engineering Practice matches the activities of IFAC.
Papers demonstrating the contribution of automation and control in improving the performance, quality, productivity, sustainability, resource and energy efficiency, and the manageability of systems and processes for the benefit of mankind and are relevant to industrial practitioners are most welcome.