Consensus Control for Looper Tension Control System Using Subspace Identification Method

The looper tension control system of hot strip mills is a typical multi-agent system, and the coupling effects among the agents are strong. However,it is difficult for us to establish the accurate coupling model for the looper tension control system. In this study, a distributed control strategy is proposed for the looper tension control system. With the subspace identification method, the local measurement of the looper control system and the information of its neighbors are used directly to develop the consensus control protocol without any knowledge of the looper tension system dynamics. The sufficient conditions for the consensus of multi-agent system with the proposed control protocol are proposed. In addition, a consensus control protocol with communication time delay is presented. Finally simulations are performed to verify the effectiveness of the control strategy.