Constrained control strategies for disturbance rejection in a solar furnaces

This paper addresses the temperature control problem in a solar furnace. In particular, two control strategies for the disturbances rejection (represented by the variation of the input energy provided by the Sun, mainly because of passing clouds and the solar daily cycle) are proposed, based on a two-degrees-of-freedom scheme. The first one is based on generalized predictive control, where a nonlinear model is employed for free response prediction while a linearized model is used for the computation of the forced response. Amplitude and slew-rate constraints on both the control variable and the output of the system are taken into account. The second one is a constrained control strategy where both the process input and output constraints are taken into account explicitly. In both cases an adaptation of the most significant process parameter is performed. Simulation and experimental results show the effectiveness of the methodologies.(1) (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.