Design of Indirect Fractional Order IMC Controller for Fractional Order Processes

In this brief, indirect design estimation of fractional order systems is proposed. In indirect fractional order approach, fractional order plant is shifted in the frequency domain and the equivalent plant is modeled by employing binomial approximation. The equivalent fractional order plant obtained is used for the design of the controller. While designing fractional order controllers, robustness and handling sensitivity to parametric variations are of key importance. Therefore, indirect fractional order approach is used, which gives the flexibility to adjust the maximum sensitivity according to the system requirements and eliminates the need for external IMC filter. IMC filter added externally results in an additional phase lag of the system. The proposed design method excludes external IMC filter and the binomial expansion used helps in achieving the internal filter which results in better transient response. This is termed as Indirect Fractional order IMC based fractional order PID controller.