IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CONTROL SYSTEMS TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 7, NO.
4, JULY 1999
Application of Wiener Model Predictive Control
(WMPC) to a pH Neutralization Experiment
Sandra J. Norquay, Ahmet Palazoglu, and Jose Alberto Romagnoli
Abstract pH control is recognized as an industrially impor-
tant, yet notoriously difficult control problem. Wiener models,
consisting of a linear dynamic element followed in series by
a static nonlinear element, are considered to be ideal for rep-
resenting this and several other nonlinear processes. Wiener
models require little more effort in development than a standard
linear step-response model, yet offer superior characterization
of systems with highly nonlinear gains. These models may be
incorporated into model predictive control (MPC) schemes in
a unique way which effectively removes the nonlinearity from
the control problem, preserving many of the favorable properties
of linear MPC. In this paper, Wiener model predictive control
(WMPC) is evaluated experimentally, and also compared with
benchmark proportional integral derivative (PID) and linear
MPC strategies, considering the effects of output constraints and
modeling error.
I. INTRODUCTION
M ODEL predictive control (MPC) allows us to use the
detailed knowledge of a process, in the form of a
dynamic model, as an aid to controlling that process within
the required constraints [9]. Typically, linear models are used
for this, despite the fact that essentially all industrial processes
exhibit some degree of nonlinear behavior. This is due to the
significant increase in complexity of the predictive control
problem resulting from the use of a nonlinear model [2].
Linear MPC employs models which are linearized about
the operating point as an aid to predicting the response of the
controlled process. This strategy proves to be quite successful
even in controlling mildly nonlinear processes. The higher
the degree of nonlinearity, however, the greater the level of
mismatch between actual process and the representative model,
hence resulting in a deterioration of controller performance.
For extending linear MPC to the control of nonlinear
processes, a model is required that can represent the salient
nonlinearities but possibly without the complications associ-
ated with general nonlinear models. It is in fulfilling this need
that Wiener models are particularly useful. Wiener models
consist of a linear dynamic element followed in series by a
static nonlinear element [3], which translates to a process with
linear dynamics but a nonlinear gain. This is a structure that
can adequately represent many of the nonlinearities commonly
Manuscript received April 3, 1997. Recommended by Associate Editor, T.
Ogunnaike.
S. J. Norquay is with Orica Ltd., Matraville, NSW 2036, Australia.
A. Palazoglu is with the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials
Science, University of California, Davis, CA 95616 USA.
J. A. Romagnoli is with the Department of Chemical Engineering, The
University of Sydney, Sydney NSW 2006, Australia.
Publisher Item Identifier S 1063-6536(99)05855-8.
10636536/99$10.00 1999 IEEE
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437
encountered in industrial processes such as distillation, pH
neutralization and heat exchange. Alduwaish et al. [1] showed
that multilayer feedforward neural networks can be used in
the identification and control of Wiener models. In the case
of pH neutralization, as is considered here, the suitability
of the Wiener model for representing the process has been
recognized by several researchers. Pajunen [15] investigated
several different techniques for fitting a Wiener model to the
pH process. Kalafatis et al. [12] noted that a pH process
can be accurately modeled by a Wiener model if the process
stream is significantly larger than the titrating flowrate yet
also recognized that good results may be obtained even when
the titrating flowrate is a significant fraction of the process
flowrate.
For the control of pH, many researchers suggested a variety
of control strategies and algorithms. Gupta and Coughanowr
[10] developed a controller based on a first-order linear model,
but which adapted the parameters such that the a constant
closed-loop gain was maintained, while Shinskey [17] com-
pensated for the nonlinear process gain using a piecewise
linear gain. Wright and Kravaris [18] developed an adaptive
controller which dealt with the nonlinearity of the titration
curve by means of strong acid equivalents. More recently,
Proll and Karim [16] demonstrated the use of nonlinear
ARX models for real-time model-predictive control of pH
neutralization. Fruzzetti et al. [7] presented an MPC of pH
neutralization using Hammerstein models, thus motivating this
study.
The work presented here includes the development of a
Wiener model, consisting of a cubic spline to represent the
nonlinearity and a step-response model describing the dynam-
ics, with the subsequent incorporation of this model into a
MPC scheme. Experimental results dealing with both uncon-
strained and constrained control as well as the performance
in the face of significant model mismatch are presented. This
paper significantly extends the work previously presented on
the unconstrained control of pH neutralization [13] using
WMPC by considering constrained control, the issue of model
mismatch and the advantages of filtering the feedback signal.
II. WIENER MODEL IDENTIFICATION AND VALIDATION
In its most general form, a Wiener model consists of a
linear dynamic element followed in series by a static nonlinear
element as shown in Fig. 1. Provided it is memoryless, the
nonlinear element can be chosen from a virtually unlimited
number of structures, ranging from simple algebraic functions
to complex neural networks. An important factor governing
438
Fig. 1. General Wiener model.
the choice of nonlinearity, however, is that when the model
is to be used for control purposes, the function must have
an inverse. Typically, a polynomial is chosen here because it
is simple and satisfies the condition for control by means of
its roots. Again in the choice of linear elements, a range of
possibilities are available, but a simple Auto-Regressive with
eXogeneous inputs (ARX) model is often selected.
Although the Wiener model described by an ARX model
followed by a polynomial transformation is possibly the sim-
plest form of Wiener model to implement, it does suffer from
definite limitations. Often the dynamics of the true process
model possess an order which is too high to be useful for
control system design. In this case, a step-response model
is an attractive alternative as it has the advantage that no
assumptions are required regarding the number of poles and
zeros present in the system. Use of a simple polynomial for
the static nonlinearity can also be very limiting, particularly
in the case of processes with highly nonlinear gains. A high-
order polynomial can be impractical to work with in a control
framework due to the large number of resulting roots from
which the solution must be selected. It is often preferable
to use a piecewise polynomial approximation such as cubic
splines. This not only leads to a superior fit of nonlinearity,
but eliminates the error due to the selection of a spurious root.
In the case of the pH neutralization process examined
later, the cubic-spline/step-response model form of the Wiener
model was preferred as it was difficult to obtain a set of
inputoutput data which gave an adequate representation of
the system. In order to fit the ARX/polynomial model, a
random input sequence which varies in both its amplitude and
frequency is required, however, when this was applied to the
system in question, the tank pH tended to remain at each end
of the pH range. This resulted in little information and hence a
poorly fitting model around the region which is most important
for the control: pH levels between around pH 6 and pH 8.
Once the structure, size and sampling interval of the model
have been chosen, the next step is parameter estimation. For
a Wiener model, this may be done in a two-stage procedure
where the nonlinear model is fitted first to steady-state data
followed by estimation of the linear model coefficients or as
a single stage process where both the linear and nonlinear co-
efficients are fitted simultaneously using prediction-error tech-
niques. The former method tends to be superior as the latter
requires a large number of parameters to be fitted at once which
may affect the performance of the identification strategy.
The final step in parameter estimation is the validation of the
resulting model, to detect whether there are unmodeled terms
in the residuals which will cause bias in the model output.
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CONTROL SYSTEMS TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 7, NO. 4, JULY 1999
Fig. 2. Block diagram for linear MPC.
Fig. 3. Block diagram for Wiener MPC.
Billings and Voon [4] and Billings and Fakhouri [3] detail a
set of model validity tests based on covariance calculations
which have been used extensively in the present work as well
[13]. In the interest of brevity, the reader is directed to the
cited papers for a detailed explanation and derivation.
III. WMPC FORMULATION
The block diagram for the general linear unconstrained MPC
formulation is as shown in Fig. 2, where represents the
actual process, and and represent the controller and
process model blocks, respectively. The model and process
outputs are represented by and and and denote
the setpoint and the disturbance signals, respectively. Wiener
models have the advantage that they have a static nonlinearity
which can be effectively removed from the control problem.
Obviously, this nonlinearity cannot be ignored, but, structuring
the control problem as shown in Fig. 3, greatly simplifies not
only the optimization, but also the stability analysis [14].
As can be seen from Fig. 3, the nonlinearity is treated
as a simple static mapping, the inverse being performed on
the model and process outputs, and , respectively, to
produce a linear control problem between the input and the
intermediate variable It should be noted since the model
actually consists of two blocks, the linear element followed by
the static nonlinearity, the latter of these will actually cancel
with the inverse nonlinearity performed on its output, leaving
only the linear element of the model in this path.
For MPC applications, one seeks to minimize a performance
function, which is basically a sum of the squared error between
the desired output and the predicted output over a number of
NORQUAY et al.: APPLICATION OF WIENER MODEL PREDICTIVE CONTROL 439

time intervals, called the prediction horizon. A performance Using the equations above, we may now represent the vector
function consisting of only a least-squares error, however, can of (1) by
result in excessively large changes in the input variable so this
is rectified by the addition of a term which penalizes large (7)
changes in input. A penalty on the absolute value can also be
where
added which results in a performance function of
(1)
where .. ..
. .

and is a column vector of length , where the th element

is given by
Here, is the error between the desired and predicted outputs
intervals into the future, and is the change in input
intervals into the future is the change input at the present (8)
time). Vector is of length and vectors and are both
of length where is termed the prediction horizon and where
the control horizon, respectively. Although it is possible
to set quality of control is generally improved when (9)
For the case of , it is assumed that is zero
between and and are diagonal matrices
and
of weighting factors which are also design parameters.
In order to find the set of input changes which minimize the
performance function, (1) must be expressed in terms of these (10)
input changes. First, it is assumed that the linear element of the
Wiener model may be represented by a step-response model It is now possible to express the performance function, (1), in
the standard quadratic programming form
(2) (11)
where are the step-response coefficients of the model which
may vary from the true step-response coefficients , and which has the optimal solution of
is termed the model horizon. Equation (2) can also be written
in the recursive form [11] (12)

where
(3)
(13)
where are the impulse-response coefficients and are related (14)
to the step-response coefficients as and
It is also assumed that and for with
When the step-response and impulse-response models are
used to predict the output, a correction is also added to ..
.
account for unmeasured disturbances and model mismatch. To .. .. ..
. . .
determine this term, we calculate the present model output
value from past inputs then compare it with the actual process
output, thus defining For the case of constrained control, the optimization prob-
(4) lem is expressed as a standard quadratic programming prob-
lem, as in the unconstrained case
and assume that this value remains constant over the entire pre-
diction horizon. Now, the first-order filter output is represented (15)
by
but now subject to
(5)
(16)
Here, the corrected predicted value of the intermediate variable
is given by where

(6) (17)

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440 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CONTROL SYSTEMS TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 7, NO. 4, JULY 1999

Fig. 4. Experimental pH control setup.

Fig. 5. Titration curve for the pH neutralization system.

This leads to an optimum solution [6] of

(18) implemented to maintain the required flowrates of the acid

and base streams in a cascade manner. The master loop had a
sampling time of 10 s to accommodate the slave loop response.
where and correspond to the constraints which are active The acid solution used was 1 mM HCl and the base
at the optimum and is the vector of Lagrange multipliers solution was 2 mM NaOH. A buffer of potassium phosphate
corresponding to these constraints. If we define monobasic/sodium hydroxide (pH 7) was also added to both
solutions to a concentration 0.2 mM. Additional buffering was
and also caused by the presence of dissolved CO (pKa 6.35
and pKa 10.33) and another unknown buffer (pKa 9.8).
then, we have a solution in the same form as that of the The titration curve for the system is shown in Fig. 5.
unconstrained case A deterministic model of this system was constructed with
the primary assumptions of perfect mixing, constant density,
(19) complete dissociation of the acid and base, and that valve and
pH probe dynamics have negligible time constants compared
IV. pH NEUTRALIZATION PROCESS to the process. The reaction model is based on that given
Control of pH is a particularly challenging problem due by Hall and Seborg [11]. The chemical reactions for the
to the inherent nonlinearity in the titration curve. The slope neutralization are
of this curve corresponds to the gain in control loop and
H O OH H
can vary several orders of magnitude across only a relatively
small range of pH. Since pH is simply a static transformation H CO HCO H
performed at the process output HCO CO H
HBu Bu H
pH (20)
HBu Bu H
where is the hydrogen ion concentration, a Wiener model
appears to be a natural choice to represent the system. The where the buffer reactions are defined as simply the final two
experimental system, located at the University of California, equations for convenience. Note that the second and third
Davis, is illustrated in Fig. 4 and was used to test the perfor- reactions describe the buffering effect caused by the dissolved
mance of MPC using both linear and Wiener models as well as CO The following four reaction invariants are now defined:
proportional integral derivative (PID) control as a benchmark
test. H OH HCO CO
Acid and base solutions were supplied to a (21)
continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR) where the liquid level H CO HCO CO
was maintained constant by means of an overflow tube, thus
(22)
maintaining a volume of 2 l. A pH probe with very fast
dynamics was submerged in the CSTR and measurements from HBu Bu (23)
this, as well as the flowrates were sent to a PC where all control HBu Bu (24)
calculations are performed. The primary loop of interest in
this study manipulated the base flowrate in order to control It is assumed that the above reactions occur at rapid rate,
the pH. In addition to this control loop, slave controllers were and therefore, the system is at equilibrium described by the

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NORQUAY et al.: APPLICATION OF WIENER MODEL PREDICTIVE CONTROL
following equations:
HCO H
H CO
CO H
(25a)
HCO
Bu H
HBu
Bu H
HBu
H OH
The invariant and equilibrium equations can be combined to
give the following expression:
H H
H
H
H H
H H
H H
which can be solved for the hydrogen ion concentration if
and are known.
The dynamic behavior of the process is described by the
following differential equation:
where
A titration curve can be constructed from the equilibrium
equations and is fitted to the experimental curve by adjusting
the values of the concentration of HCl in the acid solution, the
concentration of NaOH in the base solution, the concentration
of CO and both buffers in the water. The simulation was
then carried out, using these fitted values to provide data for
creating linear and Wiener models to be used in MPC. In this
way, a range of data can be produced more simply and in less
time than if the actual experiment was run in order to collect
data in such a range.
Two small perturbations, one positive and one negative,
were implemented in the base flowrate to produce step re-
sponse curves about the chosen operating point, pH 7. For
the linear dynamic model, these curves were simply divided
by the size of their corresponding input then an average was
taken at each sampling point to produce the step response
coefficients. Constructing a Wiener model involved an extra
step to fit the nonlinear element. Cubic splines were fitted to
produce a relation between the base flowrate and the resulting
steady-state pH. All points on all of the step response curves
were transformed using the inverse of these cubic splines so
that ideally, these intermediate variable values should vary
linearly with input. The intermediate variable values were then
divided by the size of the input and averaged as in the linear
case. The comparison of the predicted output using a Wiener
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441
(25)
(26)
(27)
(28)
Fig. 6. Comparison of the outputs of the Wiener model (solid line), linear
model (dashed line) and deterministic model (dotted line) for a base flowrate
input sequence with uniform random frequency and amplitude.
model and a linear model is illustrated in Fig. 6. From this
comparison, it can be seen that the Wiener model provides an
excellent representation of the data whereas the linear model
(29)
follows the dynamics of the process well but provides a poor
estimate of the gain. The model validation tests for the Wiener
model and linear model were also performed, although the
results are not included here for brevity. We have observed that
both the Wiener model and linear model accurately represent
the dynamics of the system. This is not unexpected since a
Wiener model was chosen to be used because the dynamics
of the process were almost linear and the nonlinearity was
(30) contained within the gain.
Both the linear and Wiener model were incorporated into
MPC schemes and tuned using the simulation. No filtering
was used in either controller. A PID controller was also tuned
using CohenCoon tuning rules, however, the gain had to be
decreased significantly as the standard tuning tended to be
very oscillatory and even unstable due to the wide range of
process gains encountered. First, the gain was decreased using
recognized detuning rules [11], but this proved inadequate so it
was reduced further. The tuning parameters for each controller
were as follows:
Wiener MPC
Linear MPC
PID l/min/pH s
s
These controllers were then implemented on the experimental
system.
V. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The experimental results from the implementation of the
controllers are presented here for a range of different condi-
tions and control strategies.
442
! !
Fig. 7. Plots (a), (c), and (e) show the system response to a step change in
the setpoint from pH7.0 pH8.5 pH7.0 for Wiener MPC, linear MPC and
PID, respectively. Plots (b), (d), and (f) show the corresponding manipulated
variable moves in l/min. Time is in seconds.
! !
Fig. 8. (a), (c), and (e) show the unconstrained system response to a step
change in the setpoint from pH7.0 pH5.5 pH7.0 for Wiener MPC,
linear MPC and PID, respectively. (b), (d), and (f) show the corresponding
manipulated variable moves in l/min.
Unconstrained Control
Figs. 79, show the results produced for setpoint changes
and unmeasured disturbances in the unconstrained case. It
can be seen from these results that the WMPC algorithm
offers marked improvement over the linear MPC and PID by
reducing the offset and the oscillatory behavior.
Constrained Control
To investigate the effect of hard constraints on the system,
the setpoint was once again changed from pH 7 to pH
8.5, but this time with a hard constraint of pH 8.6 on the first
sampled predicted output. The results of this implementation
are shown in Fig. 10, where it can be seen that both the
Wiener and linear MPC failed to constrain the process within
the pH 8.6 bound. One can argue that this is due to the
controller allowing a manipulation of the base flowrate which
did not violate the constraint after one time interval, but set the
process on a trajectory which made violation of this constraint
unavoidable by the second time interval. In response to this,
the constraint was removed from the first sampled predicted
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CONTROL SYSTEMS TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 7, NO. 4, JULY 1999
! !
Fig. 9. (a), (c), and (e) show the unconstrained system response to a
step change in the acid stream flowrate from 1.0 0.5 1.01/min for
Wiener MPC, linear MPC and PID, respectively. (b), (d), and (f) show the
corresponding manipulated variable moves in l/min.
!
Fig. 10. (a) and (c) show the system response to a step change in the setpoint
from pH7.0 pH8.5 for Wiener MPC and linear MPC, respectively, when
a hard output constraint of pH8.6 is imposed on the first predicted output. (b)
and (d) show the corresponding manipulated variable moves in l/min.
output and placed on the second sampled predicted output
instead, and the results are shown in Fig. 11. These results
demonstrate that placement of the constraint on the second
sampled predicted output is clearly a more effective method
of constraint handling for this system as the WMPC does
constrain the system within the pH 8.6 bound and the
linear MPC allows only a small violation. This violation of the
constraint by the linear MPC is probably a direct consequence
of the linear model not being as accurate in this region as the
Wiener model.
The effects of constraining the control in an attempt to
decrease the effects of a disturbance were also considered and
no significant change was observed in the performance of the
WMPC algorithm.
Unconstrained Control with Model Mismatch
A difficulty often experienced when attempting to control
pH is variation in the composition of the process stream
being neutralized. Different levels of buffering about different
NORQUAY et al.: APPLICATION OF WIENER MODEL PREDICTIVE CONTROL
!
Fig. 11. (a) and (c) show the system response to a step change in the setpoint
from pH7.0 pH8.5 for Wiener MPC and linear MPC, respectively, when
a hard output constraint of pH8.6 is imposed on the second predicted output.
(b) and (d) show the corresponding manipulated variable moves in l/min.
Fig. 12. Titration curve for the pH neutralization system without pH7 buffer
in the acid stream (solid line) and with pH7 buffer in the acid stream (dotted
line).
pH levels can play havoc with even the most accurately
designed predictive control system. It was therefore considered
important to include the effects of such a mismatch. For
truly severe changes in composition where the titration curve
is drastically changed, no nonadaptive, empirically based
controller will perform well, but that is not the situation
considered here. Here, we consider mismatch but not the type
of radical buffering mismatch which results in a system bearing
little resemblance to the original. In this case, the mismatch is
a reduction of buffering about the operating point. This is often
a difficult disturbance for a controller to deal with as it may
cause significant increase in the process gain, a modeling error
which can result in instability or at least impractical levels
of oscillation in many a controller. To investigate this, no
potassium phosphate monobasic/sodium hydroxide buffering
was used in the acid solution, resulting in the titration curve
shown in Fig. 12. The increase in gain about the operating
point is clearly visible from this graph.
First, the same setpoint and acid flowrate changes were
performed previously for the fully buffered system and the
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443
! !
Fig. 13. (a), (c), and (e) show the unconstrained system response to a step
change in the setpoint from pH7.0 pH8.5 pH7.0 for Wiener MPC, linear
MPC and PID, respectively, when there is no pH7 buffer added to the acid
stream. (b), (d), and (f) show the corresponding manipulated variable moves
in l/min.
! !
Fig. 14. (a), (c), and (e) show the unconstrained system response to a step
change in the acid stream flowrate from 1.0 0.5 1.0 l/min for Wienr
MPC, linear MPC and PID, respectively, when there is no pH7 buffer added to
the acid stream. (b), (d), and (f) show the corresponding manipulated variable
moves in l/min.
results for the unconstrained case are shown in Figs. 13 and 14.
These results show that while there is definitely a deterioration
in the performance of each of the controllers, all three remain
stable and are able to maintain the required setpoint. Despite
the increase in oscillation within the closed loop, the WMPC
still performs better compared to both the linear MPC and the
PID control.
Constrained Control with Model Mismatch
While the performance of the controllers was shown to be
good for the unconstrained case, we wished to examine the
effect that this modeling error had on the constraint handling
of the model predictive controllers. The same setpoint change
was performed as for the fully buffered case, with a constraint
on the second sampled predicted output. The results are shown
in Fig. 15, where it is observed that the mismatch does have a
significant effect on the ability of the controllers to work within
the constraints. The system violates the constraint when under
444
!
Fig. 15. (a) and (c) show the system response to a step change in the setpoint
from pH7.0 pH8.5 for Wiener MPC and linear MPC, respectively, when
there is no pH7 buffer added to the acid stream and a hard output constraint
of pH8.6 is imposed on the second predicted output. (b) and (d) show the
corresponding manipulated variable moves in l/min.
either WMPC or linear MPC, though the overshoot is smaller
than for the unconstrained case.
Filtering Added to Unconstrained Control
with Model Mismatch
It was at this point that the effects of a filter were in-
vestigated. While the filter plays no role in improving the
performance or stability of the system when there is no
mismatch or unmodeled disturbances, it may be used to
improve the robustness of a controller. Using unconstrained
WMPC, step changes in the setpoint were performed with three
different values of filter constant, 0.5, 0.6, and 0.8. As can be
seen from Fig. 16, the filter constant of 0.5 produces little
improvement in the closed-loop performance, as it remains
quite oscillatory. An increase to 0.6, however, has significant
results. Much of the oscillation about pH 7 is removed and
the overall performance is improved. A further increase to 0.8
removes even more of the oscillations present in the unfiltered
case, yet causes deterioration in the performance as the process
response tends to be sluggish.
Filtering Added to Constrained Control with Model Mismatch
In light of the improvement in the overall performance
resulting from the introduction of filtering, constraints were
added to the second predicted output, to determine if there
was any improvement in the constraint handling compared
with that in Fig. 15. The response resulting from a setpoint
change using a constrained Wiener model predictive controller
is shown in Fig. 17, where it can be observed that the process
no longer violates the constraint at pH 8.6.
VI. CONCLUSIONS
A Wiener model was developed to characterize an experi-
mental pH system then incorporated into a model predictive
control scheme in order to control it. The level of control was
compared with linear MPC using a step response model and
PID control. An important feature of model predictive control
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CONTROL SYSTEMS TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 7, NO. 4, JULY 1999
! !
Fig. 16. (a), (c), and (e) show the unconstrained system response to a step
change in the setpoint from pH7.0 pH8.5 pH7.0 for Wiener MPC with
 = 0:5;  = 0:6; and  = 0:8; respectively, when there is no pH7 buffer
added to the acid stream. (b), (d), and (f) show the corresponding manipulated
variable moves in l/min.
!
Fig. 17. (a) shows the system response to a step change in the setpoint from
pH7.0 pH8.5 for Wiener MPC with  = 0:6 when there is no pH7 buffer
added to the acid stream and a hard output constraint of pH8.6 is imposed
on the second predicted output. (b) shows the corresponding manipulated
variable moves in l/min.
is its ability to handle constraints so the performance of each of
the MPC schemes operating under output constraints was also
examined. Modeling error, an issue which any implementable
controller must deal with, and its effect on the controller
performance was investigated by reducing the amount of
buffering in the system. In each of these areas, the WMPC
was found to perform at least as well and often significantly
better than either of its linear counterparts, yet required little
extra effort than linear MPC in the model development stage,
and in control implementation. The effect of adding a filter
to improve the robustness was also examined for the case
of Wiener MPC. It was found that through correct choice of
filter constant, oscillations in the system resulting from the
destabilizing effect of the modeling error could be decreased
significantly without loss of performance. It was also found
that the filtering enabled the controller to maintain the system
within hard output constraints.
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255258, 1996.
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Sandra J. Norquay received the Bachelor of Science degree in applied
mathematics and bachelor of engineering in chemical engineering at Monash
University, Australia, and the Ph.D. degree from the University of Sydney,
Australia. During her postgraduate study she spent five months as a Research
Student at the University of California, Davis. Her thesis is titled Nonlinear
Model Predictive Control Based on Wiener and Hammerstein Structures.
After completing her degree in mid-1997 she began work as a Process
Systems Engineer with Orica Australia.
Ahmet Palazoglu received the B.S. degree in chemical engineering from
Middle East Technical University, Turkey, in 1978, and the M.S. degree
from Bogazici University, Turkey, also in chemical engineering, in 1980. He
received the Ph.D. degree in chemical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechic
Institute, Troy, NY, in 1984.
He joined the faculty at the University of California, Davis, in 1994. He is
a Professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at the University
of California, Davis. His research interest include nonlinear process control,
distributed parameter systems, and robust control theory.
Jose Alberto Romagnoli was born in Bahia Blanca, Argentina, in 1948. He
received the Bachelor degree and the Ph.D. degree in chemical engineering
from the Universidad Nacional del Sur, Argentina, in 1973 and the University
of Minnesota, Mineapolis, in 1980, respectively.
Since 1980, he has been a Researcher for the CONICET (National Council
for Research in Science and Technology) and a Full Professor of Process
Control in the Department of Chemical Engineering, Universidad del Sur.
During the academic year 1987 to 1988, he was a Visiting Associate Professor
at University of Minnesota while on sabatical leave from the Universidad del
Sur. He was also a Visiting Associate Professor at University of California
at Davis during the academic year 1988 to 1989. He holds now the Joint
Orica-University of Sydney Chair of Process Systems Engineering at Sydney
University. His current research interests include process dynamics and robust
linear and nonlinear control.