Application of decoupling controllers to coupled drives process

Control of a coupled drives apparatus laboratory model as a two-inputs-two-outputs system is presented. The coupled drives apparatus is a multivariable model with internal interactions between control loops. It is a nonlinear system with variable parameters. It was assumed, that the dynamic behaviour of the system could be described in the neighbourhood of steady state by a discrete linear model. Two control algorithms based on polynomial theory and pole-placement are proposed. Decoupling compensators are used to suppress interactions between control loops. The algorithms in adaptive versions are then used for control of the apparatus. The recursive least squares method with the directional forgetting was used for the identification process. The control tests executed on the laboratory model provided very satisfactory results, despite of the fact, that the non-linear dynamics was described by a linear model.