Programmable logic controller based embedded quadratic programming for input-constrained internal model control

Advanced control algorithms such as optimization-based controls are known to offer superior performance as well as systematic constraints handling when compared to classical control strategies. However, the complexity of such advanced control methods makes their implementations difficult, especially on controllers with limited computational capacity such as the programmable logic controllers (PLC). This paper presents the capability of a low-cost low-end PLC for online computation of advanced control. In particular, an online quadratic program within the framework of input-constrained internal model control is implemented, and the effectiveness is illustrated using a hardware-in-the-loop experiment.