Tuning of the PID Controller Based on Model Predictive Control

Xiaoping Ma1, Xin Song1, Huijun Li1,2, Jieru Niu1

1. College of information and electric engineering, China University of Mining and Technology
XuZhou, JiangSu 221008, China
E-mail: songxin2323@163.com.
2. Institute of Automation Chinese Academy of Science Beijing 100190, China.
E-mail: plutoli@163.com
Abstract: In this paper an algorithm of PID controller based on model predictive control is derived. With this algorithm the three
parameters of a PID controller are tuned to the process to obtain a satisfactory closed-loop process performance. Using this algorithm for
time-delay system is proposed to enhance the real-time performance and the reliability of process control. Analyzed the three parameters
tuned of a simple PID form, the effect is not ideal. A new structure is discussed which provides an effective way of to solve this problem,
which introduces feedback from actuator output to the controller. The new structure with constraint provides an effective way of
modeling and control of process. It was suitable to be applied to the real industrial process field.
Key Words: predictive control, PID controller, time-delay system, algorithm

INTRODUCTION

Proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controllers and

model Predictive Control (MPC) are two control
algorithms commonly found in industrial applications. The
three parameters commonly found in industrial
applications. The three parameters of a PID controller
must be tuned to the process to obtain a satisfactory
closed-loop process performance.
Over the years, amounts of techniques have been
suggested for tuning of the PID parameters. Explicit
relations for tuning PID controllers were proposed in
(Zieglers and Nichols, 1942). Astrom and Hagglund (1988)
developed a feedback auto tuning of PID controllers. Over
15 years ago, because of its simplicity and efficiency, relay
based auto tuning methods have been integrated into
commercial controllers, which have been successful in
many process control applications [1]. The structure of
PID controllers is discussed in with respect to self-tuning
algorithms and automatic selection of structures.
On the other hand, MPC method has become one of the
most popular control methods both in industry and
academia. The MPC provides an analytical solution; it can
deal with unstable and non-minimum phase plants. The
MPC is an optimal method which incorporation of
weighting of control increments in the cost functions.
Because of wide application of the PID controller, many
researchers have attempted to use advanced control
techniques such as optimal control and MPC to restrict the
structure of these controllers to retrieve the PID controller
[2].
Rivera et al. (1986) introduced an IMC based PID
controller design for a first order process model. Chien
(1988) extended IMC-PID controller design to cover the
second order process model. Morari and Zafiriou (1989)
have shown that Internal Model Control (IMC) leads to
PID controller for virtually all models common in
This work is supported by National Nature Science Foundation under
Grant 60974126 and Jangsu Province Nature Science Foundation under
Grant BK2009094

c
978-1-4244-5182-1/10/$26.00 2010
IEEE

industrial practice [3]. In wang et al. (2000) a least square

algorithm was used to compute the closest equivalent PID
controller to an IMC design and a frequency response
approach is adopted. However, the design is still
ineffective when applied to time-delay system. Marques
and Fliess (2000) have developed a simple approach for
PID control of linear continuous systems based on flat
output trajectory generation [4]. Important characteristics
of model predictive methods have been combined with
PID control properties by considering flatness based
predicted trajectory. The real time results showed that their
methods are applicable and efficient.
In the industrial process control field, due to the aftereffect
phenomena occurred in the real processes inner dynamics,
the variety of transport delays, communication delays
involved by the sensors and transducers, and the
computational time, time-delay effects are inevitable.
Nowadays, the performance of traditional controllers is not
satisfactory. Therefore, the design and application of the
advanced controller which takes the time-delay into
account are necessary [5].
MPC is a form of control in which the current control
action is obtained by solving on-line, at each sampling
instant, a finite horizon open-loop optimal control
problem, using the current state of the plant as the initial
state; the optimization yields an optimal control sequence
and the first control in this sequence is applied to the plant.
On the basis of model predictive control, we unify the PID
control method to form a new predictive control algorithm
by changing objective function, enable it has generalized
structural feature of proportion (P), integral (I), and the
derivative (D).There is also a certain similarity between
the parameter setting and the conventional PID parameter
variation[6]. The PID controllers are widely applied in the
industrial field. PID controller has many advantages, such
as simple principle, good robustness and have the strong
generality and in general use with function and so on.
However, in the time-delay system, while the normalized
time delay constant is bigger  0.6), a PID controller is
almost ineffective[7]. An improved PID controller based

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on MPC can meet the control requirements of the

time-delay systems.

MODEL PREDICTIVE CONTROL

Model Predictive Control (MPC) has an unusual history,

with separate strands of development in system theory
(where it is generally referred to as receding horizon
control), generalized predictive control (where the initial
intention was the improvement of adaptive control) and in
process control where its almost unique ability to handle
hard constraints has led to its wide scale adoption in
industry, making it the industry standard in some
important application areas. Indeed it might be justifiably
being argued that the importance of model predictive
control derives primarily from its industrial success, a fact
that delineates it from other design procedures that are, in
general, theoretically motivated [4].
MPC is an advanced control algorithm based on model,
which is divided into different types according to the
different model it used, such as Dynamic Matrix Control
(DMC) Model Algorithmic Control (MAC)
Generalized Predictive Control (GPC) Generalized
Predictive Control of Poles (GPP) and Inferential Control
(IC) etc [3].
Prediction and control in different level makes the system
design more flexible. Based on practical feedback
information, this iterative optimization has strong
adaptability for uncertainties such as modeling errors and
environment disturbance. Taking the control incremental
sequence into account in the objective function, the MPC
applies to the long time-delay, non-minimum phase, as
well as non-linear processes, and conditions to better
control effect. Therefore it has attached great importance
of the control engineering, presented a number of new
algorithms and won tremendous successes on industry [8].
A MPC controller is composed of 3 parts: predictive model
rolling optimization and feedback correction. Output
error model (OE) was used to construct a MPC in this
paper.
Suppose the pulse transfer function of a time-delay process
as follows:

z d (b0 + b1 z 1 + b2 z 2 + " + bm z m )
y (k ) =
u (k )
1 + a1 z 1 + a2 z 2 + "a n z n
(1)

Suppose that =1-z-1, then

A( z 1 ) = (1 + a1 z 1 + a2 z 2 + "+ an z n )
1

= 1 + a1 z + a2 z +"+ an z + an+1 z

n 1

(2)
Therefore, formula (3) can be deduced according to (1) and
(2) on k+1 time.

y(k + j) + a1 y(k + j 1) + "+ an+1 y(k + j n 1)

(3)
= b0u(k d + j) + b1u(k d + j 1)
+ "bmu(k d + j m)
The predictive model is OE model in the process, so we
need to deduce the algorithm of the predictive controller

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2010 Chinese Control and Decision Conference

based on this model. Assume the predictive length is P,

control length is C, which satisfies condition CP,
Define Y UA and B as:

y ( k + d n)

y (k + d )

""""""
Y1
y (k + d + 1)

Y = y (k + d + 2) = "
Y
#
2

y
(
k
d
C
)
+
+

y (k + d + C + 1)

y (k + d + P)
u (k + 1 m)
#

u (k )

U1
""""""

U=
= "
u (k + 1)

U 2
u
k

(
+
2
)

u (k + C )

an+1 an " a1 1 0 " 0

0 a
" a1 1 " 0
n+1 an

A=
# % % % " % % #

0 " 0 an+1 an " a1 1 P(P+n+1)

= [ A1 A2 ]
bm bm1 "
0 b b
m
m1
B=
# % "

0 " "

b1
"
"
"

b0
b1
"
"

0
b0
"
"

" 0
" 0
% #

" bPC P(m+C)

= [B1 B2 ]
There, A1 is a Ph(n+1) matrix, A2 is a PhP matrix, B1 is a
Phm matrix and B2 is a PhCmatrix.
According to (3), we assume j=d+1,d+2,d+Pwe can
obtain liner equations, and these can be shown as:
A2Y2 = B2U 2 + ( B1U1 A1Y1 )
(4)
Because A2 is invertible matrix, we convert (4) into:

Y2 = A21B2U 2 + A21 ( B1U1 A1Y1 )

G=A2-1B2

(5)
f=A2-1(B1U1-A1Y1)

Because of matrix
and vector
Then we could get the OE prediction equation:

(6)
Y2 = GU 2 + f
Y2 and U2is the predictive output vector and input
increment predictive output respectively in this equation.
That is:

y(k + d +1)
u(k +1)
y(k + d + 2)
u(k +1)

Y2 =
,U =
#
2 #

y(k + d + P)
u(k + C)

(7)

Formula (6) shows the relationship between future input

and future output on current system status. Process actual
output couldnt keep consistent with the set value at any
time due to the real system restrict input signals,. We need
introduce the performance specification:
P

J = qi [r (k + d + i ) y (k + d + i )] 2
i =1

+ si [u (k + j )] 2

(8)

= ( R Y2 ) Q( R Y2 ) + U 2 SU 2
, where R is the set-point vector whose dimension is P, Q is
diagonal positive definite weighting matrix with P h P
dimension used for weighting error signal, S is a positive
definite diagonal weighting matrix with ChC dimension
used for weighting input signal.
According to formula (8), the objective function J can be
converted into a standard quadratic form which only
contains input vector U2:

J =

1
U 2 HU 2 + L U 2 + M
2

(9)

Expression form of H, L and M as follows:

H = 2(G QG + S )

L = 2( R f ) QG

M = ( R f ) Q( R f )

(10)

The constraint conditions of the system must be considered.

Suppose output constraint, control input constraint and
control constraint expressed as follows:
G
Ymax f

f Y

min
G

U
2
V
U max u(k ) I C1

V
u(k ) I c1 U min 2( P +C )1
2( P +C )C
U min U 2 U max
(11)
, where

1
1
=I
C 1
#

1 C 1

0 " 0
1 " 0
=V
# % #

1 " 1 C C
PID AND PREDICTIVE CONTROL

The PID controller is widely applied in industrial field.

Apart from its simple structure and relatively easy tuning,
one of the main reasons for its popularity is that it provides
the ability to remove offset by using integral action. It
improves the performance robustness in the steady state
against noise and uncertainties. Moreover, since PID
controllers are so widely used, one might expect that the
structure should arise naturally given reasonable
assumptions on system internal dynamics and control
performance specifications [5].
This is the continuous form of a PID controller that
commonly used in industrial process control field:

U ( s) = G(1 +

j =1

1
1

1
3

T s
1
+ D ) E ( s)
TI s TF s + 1

(12)

After discretization, the formula can be converted as:

u (k ) = G (1 +

h 1
T
1 z
+ D
)e ( k ) .
T1 z 1 TF + h z TFTF+ h

Converted it into the increment form as:

u(k ) = G(1 z1 +

h 1
T 1 2z1 + z 2
)e(k) ,
z D
T1
TF + h 1 TFTF+h z 1

where =1-z-1
It can be converted into a discretization incremental form
as follows:

u (k ) = {G (1

TD
)
TF + h

+ G(

T
T h 1
2TD
)z
F I
TF + h TF + h
TI

+ G(

TF (TI h)
T
D ) z 2 }e(k )
(TF + h)TI TF + h

TF
z 1
TF + h

(13)
We can assume the pulse transfer function is formula (1). ,
We need to analyze formula (4) further in order to explore
the relationship between PID controller and predictive
control. Without considering the restrict condition, the
optimal input control variable U2opt should accord with the
below formula:

2 A21 B2 Q( A21 B2U 2opt + A21 B1U1

A21 A1Y1 R) + 2SU 2opt = 0

(14)

We can obtain the optimal incremental control value:

U 2 opt = [( A21B2 ) Q ( A21B2 ) + S ]1 ( A21B2 )

Q[ R + A21 A1Y1 A21B1U1 ]

(15)

Let D = [1 0 0 0]. The predictive controller gives the

control action at time k+1.

2010 Chinese Control and Decision Conference

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u(k +1) = wR R + wY1Y1 + wU1U1

(16),

r (k + d + 1)
r (k + d + 2)

R=

r (k + d + P ) P 1
y (k + d n)
y (k + d n + 1)

Y1 =

y (k + d ) ( n +1)1

u (k + 1 m)
u (k + 2 m)

U1 =
#

u (k )
m1
Where wR wY1and wU1 are row vectors with weighted
coefficient RY1 and U1 are column vectors. Also we can
get expression of Y1 is:

u(k d +1 m)
y(k n)
u(k d + 2 m)
y(k n +1)

Y1 = A0
+ B0

(m+d)1 (17),
u(k)
n+11
y(k)
where A0 is (n+1)h(n+1) matrix and B0 is (n+1)(m+d)
matrix.
Substitution formula (17) into formula (16), we can get
this function:

y(k n)
r(k + d + 1)

r(k + d + 2)

+ wY1 A0 y(k n + 1)
u(k + 1) = wR

#
#

y(k )
r(k + d + P)
u(k + 1 m)
u(k d + 1 m)
u(k + 2 m)
u(k d + 2 m)

+w
+ wY1B0

U1

#
#

u(k )

u(k )

(18)

Simplification of the (18), we got the equation:

u ( k + 1) = C R ( z 1 ) r ( k + d + P )
+ C Y ( z 1 ) y ( k ) + C U ( z 1 ) u ( k )

(19)

It shows that at time k+1 the optimal input control action

given by the predictive controller relate to not only the
output setting at the moment between time k+d+1 and
time k+d+P, but also the process input increment at the
period of time k-d+1-m to time k. then we can convert
formula (19) into a common form of the PID controller,
that is:

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u(k) =

2010 Chinese Control and Decision Conference

z 1CR (z 1 ) + z d P1CY ( z 1 )
r(k + d + P)
1 z 1CU ( z 1 )

z 1CY ( z 1 )
e(k)
1 z 1CU ( z 1 )

(20)
We find the limitation of the PID control from formula
(20). According to (20), the current output increment of the
controller should be related on all previous deviations e,
and also relate to the output setting in an interval. But the
ordinary PID controller only has three adjusting
parameters which are much less than the parameters in the
formula (20). The transfer functions of the set value to the
process input increment are different from the error
transfer functions of the error to the process input
increment. Based on PID we could get better effects if we
introduce set value into controller output by a suitable
feedforward loop. In order to get PID parameters from
formula (12), we reduced the transfer function order to
formula (21):
0 + 1 z 1 + 2 z 2
(21)

1 + 1 z 1
So we can get the PID parameters by comparing the
coefficients of formula (21) and formula (12).

SIMULATION

For a simple time-delay system:

G( s) =

1
e 20s
1 + 20s

(22)
Then we dispersed it by zero-order holder. Therefore we
get the Pulse Transfer Function model (sample time is 1
second):

H ( z) =

0 .04877 z 21
1 0 .9512 z 1

(23)
Respectively PID parameters tuned by Zieglers-Nichol
(ZN), Endometrial Control (IMC), andMPC in this paper
are obtained at the table 1:
Table 1. The different tuning methods of PID controller
parameters

Tuning method

T1

TD

TF

Zieglers-Nichol

1.33

31.0

7.74

IMC

0.935

30.5

6.48

of PID

MPC
0.467 18.44 0.005 0.539
In this table we use predictive length and control length of
the predictive control are P=8 and C=1.
The control effects of the 3 groups tuning method of PID
are shown in the figure1.

Fig 3. The implementation of private control algorithm with constraint

condition
Fig 1.Comparison control effects of PID controller with different
parameters

Figure 1shows that the PID parameters tuned by the

predictive control algorithm is not superior to the other
methods. On the contrary, predictive control algorithm
needs a large weight value of input increment; otherwise
the system will be concussion or even divergent. The result
is that the response speed of the PID controller is too slow.
Figure 2 shows the control variables of 3 kinds of PID
tuning method.

The control effect of the controller using the figure 3

structure is shown in figure 4

Fig 4. Control effect of PID controller with constraint condition

Fig 2. The output from 3 different parameters PID controller

In this section, the validity of the designed MPC system is

verified through the control experiments. Fig.2 shows the
experimental results with 3 different parameters PID
controller.

CONSTRAINT CONDITION

In the absence of constraints, the optimal minimization of

(20) is a function of the current state, the previous input,
and the desired setpoints and a feedback matrix can be
computed offline in order to achieve fast implementation
online. However, in general, the constrained minimization
of (20) can be highly computational intensive.
The problem is that the output of PID controller is
restricted by actuator ability, the controller has none path
to receive input signals in the real process. The real process
output and the actuator output are not the same, because of
the non-linear constraints of actuator, but the controller
still use the actuator output instead of the real output, so
the state variable in the PID controller and the real state are
mismatched. Therefore, methods for explicitly solving the
multi-parametric quadratic programming problem offline
have to be considered [9].
An effective way to solve this problem is to introduce
feedback from actuator output to the controller.
Then the controller with constraint condition is designed.

From figure 4 we see that the controller in figure 3

structure can get a better effect. The structure has its
advantages: we dont need to solve some quadratic
programming problem while the system still efficient
almost as same as MPC with constraint condition. Because
the structures calculating process is simple. It only needs
to set some parameters but not needs to solve any
optimization problem. It means that the predictive control
used in some controllers has poor computing capability
(e.g. PLC)

CONCLUSION

There exist inevitable time-delay effects in industrial

process. A PID controller based on MPC is discussed in
this paper. A simple PLC model of predictive control
system was analyzed. With the dynamic experiments and
operator experience, its model was established, which
properly represents the behavior of the process and shows
superior to other modeling method. A PLC controller is
constituted, and then after simulation on the model. The
obtained results are not good enough but because the
controller has no path to receive input signals in the real
process. So we need to improve the constraint conditions.
A new structure is discussed which provides an effective
way of modeling and control to a complex industrial
process. Meanwhile, with the development of the PID and
the application of MPC, PID controller based on MPC
would play a more and more important role in the
complicated industrial processes.

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2010 Chinese Control and Decision Conference

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2010 Chinese Control and Decision Conference

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