Level control for an experimental test module using a Practical Nonlinear Model Predictive Controller

This paper presents the design of the Practical Nonlinear Model Predictive Control (PNMPC) for liquid level control. In this research, the developed nonlinear control algorithm (PNMPC) has been implemented in an experimental laboratory module, FESTO. The proposed PNMPC was programmed in a MATLAB script that sends and receives real-time data from the plant. Additionally, a PI controller with integral windup and Generalized Predictive Control (GPC) were designed to compare performance and setpoint tracking with real data. It can be observed that the PNPMC exhibits better performance, and its implementation is simpler.