Terminal Synergetic Control for Plate Heat Exchanger

Terminal synergetic control (TSC) is proposed as a control strategy for the temperature management of a plate heat exchanger. The controller is designed by incorporating a selected macro variable with a time-varying sliding surface. The primary objective is to maintain precise control over the outlet temperature of the cold water. To assess the convergence characteristics of the newly proposed TSC approach, the simulation results achieved using TSC featuring a time-varying macro variable are compared to those obtained from the conventional synergetic control (SC) method. With an appropriate macro variable, the simulation results indicate a notable improvement in the convergence rate provided by our designed TSC method, compared to the conventional one. The desirable property of control input, the chattering-free condition, achieved by both TSC and SC approaches emphasizes the advantage of the synergetic control-based techniques over the conventional sliding mode controller. In conclusion, synergetic control-based techniques offer superior potential solutions for nonlinear feedback control problems.