Online Tuning of Two Conical TankInteracting Level Process

J.G. Ziegler and N.B. Nichols, after carrying out extensive experiments with different types of processes proposed certain tuning rules, that were readily accepted and till now are used as basic guidelines for tuning of PID controllers. This paper presents the online tuning of Two Tank Conical Interacting Level Process(TTCILP). This online tuning is based on simple experimental tests and is often required because the process models used to calculate the preliminary controller settings are not exact. There are different methods for online controller tuning. In this paper, the tuning method used for the process under study is Ziegler-Nichols (Z-N) tuning algorithm. The objective of this paper is to show that by employing the Z-N tuning, an optimization can be achieved. The performance of the PI controller based on Z-N tuning is verified by taking servo and regulatory responses in MATLAB/SIMULINK software environment. The controller provides satisfactory performance in both the cases.