Predictive functional control for difficult dynamic processes with a simplified tuning mechanism

Predictive functional control (PFC) is a cheap and simplified model predictive controller, which competes with PID in price and performance. While the tuning process in PFC for simple dynamics is well established and straightforward, it becomes far more ambiguous and often less effective for processes exhibiting challenging behaviour, such as poor damping, instability and/or non-minimum phase characteristics. In this paper, we present a relative PFC algorithm that, when implemented with pre-stabilised prediction dynamics if needed, simplifies performance tuning to merely adjusting one parameter. Furthermore, it provides far superior closed-loop control in practical scenarios, where the conventional PFC and PID fail to perform, as demonstrated with three simulation case studies.