Adaptive Control for Hot Strip Finishing Mills Based on Decentralization and Coordination

To further improve the strip dimension control accuracy of hot strip mills, a robust adaptive control scheme is investigated for a hot strip finishing mill based on the decentralization and coordination among the controllers of gauge, tension and looper. Consequently, the robust adaptive controller designed can regulate simultaneously the strip exit thickness, the strip tension and the looper angle. Moreover, the control design is based on the essential nonlinearity model of system and under consideration the unavoidable friction phenomena in mechanical system, so the controller can be efficient in a wider range of working situations. The simulation results on a model obtained from a real hot strip finishing mill show the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme.