Implementation of fractional-order PID controller in an industrial distributed control system

Fractional-Order Proportional-Integral-Derivative (FOPID) controllers presents a natural extension to PID controllers, which have been used profusely in industrial control systems, and are of great practical preference. This paper presents an implementation of FOPID control in an industrial distributed control system (DCS) that is used here for level process control. The setup is composed of ABB DCS AC 700F2 (the controller) connected to Lab-Volt Level Process Station (the plant). To implement an FOPID controller for this setup, a function block is built in the industrial controller using a certain discrete form of FOPID control. A comparison of the system response using FOPID and conventional PID controllers is performed via simulation (using a response optimization tool) and experimentally (using the setup). The results show a relative improvement in system response using FOPID control.