Control of nonlinear chemical process using sliding mode control

Chemical processes exhibit strong non linear dynamic behavior with parameter uncertainties and time delays. The effect of these uncertainties should be taken care of as they can degrade the system performance or can cause instability to the system. Thus to control such processes advance robust control schemes are required. A cascade control technique using a sliding mode controller (SMC) in the exterior circle and a PID controller in the interior circle to control the temperature of a continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR) is suggested in this paper. Simulation is done in MATLAB environment and the results are compared for a PD and a PID sliding surface.