Performance assessment of cascade control system based on Generalized Minimum Variance benchmarking

Cascade control is a widely used control strategy in process industry. Compared with single-loop control, feed-forward control and multi-variable control systems, control performance assessment of cascade control systems was seldom researched. In this paper, a Generalized Minimum Variance (GMV)-based performance assessment benchmark is proposed for cascade control systems, which incorporates controlled variables with manipulating variables by error and control weightings as a generalized output. The GMV index is sensible to the variance of manipulated variables, and shows a more reasonable control status than Minimum Variance (MV) index.