Improved constraint handling approach for predictive functional control using an implied closed-loop prediction

Predictive Functional Control is a simple alternative to the traditional PID controller which has the capability to handle process constraints more systematically. Nevertheless, the most basic form of PFC has suffered from ill-posed prediction due to its simplicity in formulation and assumption of constant future input dynamics. Although some constraints can be satisfied, nevertheless the performance may be very conservative due to this issue. The main objective of this paper is to improve the constrained performance of a PFC controller with a minimum modification of the existing formulation. Specifically, a novel constraint handling approach for PFC is proposed based on an implied closed-loop prediction. Instead of assuming a constant input as deployed in the conventional open-loop prediction, the implied closed-loop input dynamics are utilised to detect future constraint violations. In addition, a future perturbation is introduced into the prediction structure as an extra degree of freedom for satisfying the constraints. Two simulation results confirm that the proposed approach gives far less conservative constraint handling and thus better control performance compared to the nominal PFC. Furthermore, this novel implementation also alleviates the well-known tuning difficulties and prediction inconsistency issues that are associated with conventional PFC when handling constraints.