S NITHYA et al : MODEL BASED CONTROLLER

MODEL BASED CONTROLLER DESIGH FOR A SPHRICAL TANK

PROCESS IN REAL TIME
S.NITHYA1, N.SIVAKUMARAN2, T.BALASUBRAMANIAN3 and N.ANANTHARAMAN4
1
School of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, SRM University, Trichy, India 621 105.
nithya.venkatesan@gmail.com
2
Department of Instrumentation and Control Engineering, nsk@nitt.edu
3
Department of Physics,
4
Department of Chemical Engineering,
National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirapalli, TamilNadu, India 620015.

Abstract: Control of process parameters is one of the important problems in process industry. The process considered for
modeling is spherical tank liquid level system. Control of liquid level in a spherical tank is nonlinear due to the variation
in the area of cross section of the level system with change in shape. System identification of this nonlinear process is
done using black box model, which is identified to be nonlinear and approximated to be a First Order Plus Dead Time
(FOPDT) model. Here the controller design is compared based on conventional Proportional Integral (PI) based on
Ziegler- Nicholas settings with Internal Model Control (IMC) based on Skogestad’s settings. The real time
implementation of the process is designed and implemented in MATLAB using ADAM’s data acquisition module. Out
of the control algorithms IMC outperforms in no overshoot, faster settling time, better set point tracking and produces
lower performance indices.

Keyword : Process Modeling, Data acquisition System, PI Controller, Internal Model Controller.

1. INTRODUCTION
Chemical process present many challenging control
problems due to their nonlinear dynamic behavior,
uncertain and time varying parameters ,constraints on
manipulated variable, interaction between manipulated
and controlled variables, unmeasured and frequent
disturbances , dead time on input and measurements.
Because of the inherent nonlinearity, most of the
chemical process industries are in need of traditional
control techniques. Spherical tanks find wide application
in gas plants. Control of a level in a spherical tank is
important, because the change in shape gives rise to the
nonlinearity.
The most basic and pervasive control algorithm used in
the feedback control is the Proportional Integral and
Derivative (PID) control algorithm. PID control is a
widely used control strategy to control most of the
industrial automation processes because of its
remarkable efficacy, simplicity of
approximated by a first-order time-delayed model and
suggested frequency domain approach based on
normalized open loop transfer function to evaluate the
effects of uncertainties in the process parameters and
thus, control system robustness. Anandanatarajan et al.
[8] have discussed the evaluation of a controller using
implementation and broad applicability. Long history of
its practical use and proficient working dynamics are
some of the pivotal reasons behind the large acceptance
of the PID control. In principle, the action of the
controller is calculated by multiplying a constant factor
with the error, the integral of the error and the derivative
of the error [1]. Ziegler- Nichols [2] has developed a
well known design methods to provide a closed-loop
response with a quarter-decay ratio. A simple PI
controller design method has been proposed by Wang
and Shao [3] that achieves high performance for a wide
range of linear self-regulating processes. Ari
Ingimundarson and Tore Hagglund [4] have compared
the performance of PI, PID and dead-time compensating
controllers based on the IAE criterion. A design method
for robust PID controller to address the model
uncertainty has been proposed by Ming Ge et al. [5]. A
criterion based on disturbance rejection and system
robustness is proposed by Tan et al. [6] to assess the
performance of PID controllers. Krajewski et al. [7] have
designed PI controllers for industrial processes
variable transformation on a hemi-spherical tank which
shows a better response than PI controller.
Model based control was developed primarily for
processes having a pronounced time delay, the intent
being to match the process delay with one in the control
system. Model based control is very popular nowadays

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 S NITHYA et al : MODEL BASED CONTROLLER

due to the ability of such controllers to handle process
with dead time effectively. One important type of model
based control is Internal Model Control [IMC], which
has the combined advantage of both open and closed
systems. Garcia and Morari [9] have developed a design
procedure for multivariable IMC systems.Chein et
.al[10] and Horn et.al [11] derived the IMC settings
which gives a very good response and provides a set
point changes.Gatzke et.al[12] have described a model
based control using internal model control for the level
control of an interacting four tank system. Tan et.al [13]
has proposed a modified IMC structure for unstable
processes with time delay. The structure extends the
standard IMC structure for stable processes to unstable
processes and controllers need not be converted to
conventional one for implementation.Nithya et al. [14]
has discussed the model based controller gives better
performance in heat exchanger process. For a nonlinear
process IMC based control outperforms the conventional
PI tuning.
The pneumatic control valve is air to close, adjusts the
flow of the water pumped to the conical tank from the
water reservoir. The level of the water in the tank is
measured by means of the differential pressure
transmitter and is transmitted in the form of (4-20) mA
to the interfacing ADAM’s module to the Personal
Computer (PC). After computing the control algorithm
in the PC control signal is transmitted to the I/P
converter in the form of current signal (4-20) mA, which
passes the air signal to the pneumatic control valve. The
pneumatic control valve is actuated by this signal to
produce the required flow of water in and out of the
tank. There is a continuous flow of water in and out of
the tank. Figure 2 shows the system is interfaced with
ADAM’s module. Table 1 shows the technical
specifications of the setup.

In this work, real time model is designed for controlling

the liquid level in a spherical tank. The process model is
experimentally determined from step response analysis
and is interfaced to real time with MATLAB using
simple cost effective ADAM’s module. The controller
tuning model is accomplished using Skogestad’ s based
PI controller settings and the performances are
compared with the conventional controller, based on
time domain specifications like peak time , overshoot
and settling time and Integral Squared Error(ISE) and
Integral Average Error(IAE).

2. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP

The laboratory set up for this system consists of a

spherical tank, a water reservoir, pump, rotameter, a
Figure 1: Real time experimental setup of Spherical
differential pressure transmitter, an electro pneumatic
Tank
converter (I/P converter), a pneumatic control valve, an

interfacing ADAM’s module and a Personal Computer

(PC). The differential pressure transmitter output is
interfaced with computer using ADAM’s 5000
Advantech module in the RS-232 port of the PC. This
module supports 8 analog input and 4 analog output
channels with the voltage range of ±10 volt. The
sampling rate of the module is 18 samples per sec and
baud rate is 9600 bytes per sec with 16-bit resolution.
The programs written in script code using MATLAB
software is then linked via this ADAM’s module with
the sampling time of 60 milliseconds. Figure 1 shows the
real time experimental setup of a spherical tank. Figure 2: Real time interfacing of ADAM’s with
Spherical Tank

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 S NITHYA et al : MODEL BASED CONTROLLER

2h s
Table 1: Technical Specifications of Experimental Where τ = 4πR t h s and R t = (4)
Setup Q 2s

3.2 Black Box Modeling

3. SYSTEM IDENTIFICATION
Here in real time implementation, system identification
3.1 Mathematical Modeling of this nonlinear process is done using black box
modeling. For fixed input water flow rate and output
The spherical tank system shown in Figure 1 is water flow rate of the Spherical tank, the tank is allowed
essentially a system with nonlinear dynamics. Its to fill with water from (0-50) cm. At each sample time
nonlinear dynamics described by the first - order the data from differential pressure transmitter i.e.
differential equation. between (4-20) mA is being collected and fed to the
dV system through the serial port RS - 232 using ADAM’s
= q1 − q 2 (1) interfacing module. Thereby the data is scaled up in
dt terms of level (in cm).Using the open loop method, for a
given change in the input variable; the output response
Where V is the Volume of the tank, q 1 is the Inlet flow for the system is recorded. Ziegler and Nichols [2] have
rate and q 2 is the outlet flow rate. obtained the time constant and time delay of a FOPTD
model by constructing a tangent to the experimental
open loop step response at its point of inflection. The
Part Name Details tangent intersection with the time axis at the step origin
Spherical Tank Material :Stainless Steel provides a time delay estimate; the time constant is
Diameter - 50 cm, estimated by calculating the tangent intersection with the
Volume : 102 liters steady state output value divided by the model gain.
Cheng and Hung [15] have also proposed tangent and
Stroage Tank Material :Stainless Steel ,
point of inflection methods for estimating FOPTD model
Volume : 48 liters
parameters. The major disadvantage of all these methods
Differential Pressure Type Capacitance, Range is the difficulty in locating the point of inflection in
Transmitter (2.5 - 250)mbar, practice and may not be accurate. Prabhu and
Output (4 - 20)mA Chidambaram [16] have obtained the parameters of the
Siemens make first order plus time delay model from the reaction curve
Pump Centrifugal 0.5 HP obtained by solving the nonlinear differential equations
Control valve Size ¼“ Pneumatic model of a distillation column. Sundaresan and
actuated” Krishnaswamy [17] have obtained the parameters of
Type: Air to close FOPTD transfer function model by letting the response
Input (3 - 15) psi of the actual system and that of the model to meet at two
Rotameter Range (0 - 18) lpm points which describe the two parameters τ and θ. The
proposed times t1 and t2 , are estimated from a step
Air regulator Size 1/4" BSP
response curve. This time corresponds to the 35.3% and
Range (0 - 2.2 )bar
85.3% response times. The time constant and time delay
E/P converter Input (4 - 20) mA
are calculated as follows.
Output (0.2 - 1) bar
Pressure gauge Range (0 - 30) psi τ = 0.67(t 2 − t1) (5)
Range (0 - 100 )psi

V=
4 3
πh (2) τ D = 1.3 t1 − 0.29 t 2 (6)
3
Where h is the total height of the tank in cm.Applying
the steady state values, and solving the equations (1) and At a fixed inlet flow rate, outlet flow rate, the system is
( 2) , for linearzing the non - linearity in the spherical allowed to reach the steady state. After that a step
tank, increment in the input flow rate is given, and various
H(s) Rt readings are noted till the process becomes stable in the
= (3) spherical tank. The experimental data are approximated
Q1 (s) τs + 1 to be a FOPDT model the model parameters are given as
6.857 e−14.61s
G ( s) = (7)
229.81s + 1

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 S NITHYA et al : MODEL BASED CONTROLLER

q(s) = q(s) − f (13)

4. DESIGN OF IMC CONTROLLER
k(1 − τ Ds)
p(s)− = (14)
Internal model control is model based controller. The
Figure 3 shows the IMC structure which makes use of a
( τs + 1)
process model to infer the effect of immeasurable Substituting equations 13 &14 in equation 12 and
disturbance on the process output and then counteracts rearranging then in the form of PI controller, the value of
that effect. The controller consists of an inverse of the KC and τi
process model.
τP
KC = (15)
K P (λ + τD )

τi = τ (16)

For fast response and good robustness the tuning

parameter is given by equation (17)
λ = τD (17)

Figure 3: IMC Structure

Here p(s) is the process , ~ p(s) is the process model and
q(s) is the internal model controller which is given in
equations 8 to 10.In equation 9 f is defined as filter Figure 4: Basic IMC Structure
transfer function which usually has the form given in
equation 11.
kl τ Ds
−

p(s) = (8)
τ s +1

q( s) = q( s)− f (9)

τs + 1
q(s) − = (10)
K Figure 5: Modified IMC structure

1 The above method is proposed by Skogestad [18] has

f = (11) used the IMC framework to derive rules for model
λs + 1
reduction and PI/PID controller tuning. Skogestad’s IMC
(SIMC in short) tuning rules are analytically derived, are
From the equation 11, the only tuning parameter is λ simple, and work well on a wide range of processes. A
and hence IMC controller is simple. salient feature is that, because SIMC rules are intended
for PI/PID controllers, a first- or second order process
4.1 IMC based PI Controller model of the process must be obtained. He has proposed
a simple procedure based on a “half-rule” to obtain an
The IMC structure shown in the Figure 4 can rearranged approximate model of the process. The result is an
as shown in the Figure 5 after applying block diagram approximate first- or second-order plus time-delay
reduction the Figure 4 is reduced to simple feed back process model. Once these reduced-order models are
structure as shown in the Figure 5. The controller obtained, the PI/PID controller gains are computed to
function c(s) in the figure is given by adjust the closed-loop response to a first- or second-
q(s) order model reference response. This procedure gives
c(s) = (12) rise to a set of simple analytical PI/PID tuning rules. The
1 − q(s)p(s)
PI controller was to run for the different set points 7, 10
and 20 cm. Then load disturbances at different intervals

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 S NITHYA et al : MODEL BASED CONTROLLER

were given in the spherical tank system for 32 cm. The

variation in the level was recorded in all the cases.

5. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The model based Skogestad controller (S Controller)

settings are applied to real time to control the liquid level
in a Spherical system. The performance of the S
controller with tuned variables is compared to a PI
controller.

5.1 Variation of Set Point

The S controller is run for a sequence of set points, that

is, 7, 10 and 20 cm and is compared with a PI controller
for the same sequence of set point changes. The
variation of level with time for the sequence of set point
changes for both the controllers are shown in Figure 6 -
8. It is observed the level oscillates very much high for Figure 6: Servo response for a set point 7 cm
PI and where as almost no oscillation Skogestad based
controller. Also it is observed that Skogestad PI tracks
the given set point in less time compared to conventional
PI controller. It is also seen from Figure 6 there is no
overshoot in Skogestad PI based controller when
compared to other controller. It is observed that
Skogestad PI based controller tracks the given set point
is good. The time domain specification calculations for
the designed controllers are shown in Table 2. From the
values shown in Table 2, it can be seen that the
Skogestad model based controller performs better than
the conventional controllers. From Table 3 it is also
observed that both ISE and IAE values are considerably
low for IMC based controller compared with PI
controller.

5.2 Changes in Load

The tuned S controller is used to control the Spherical

level system while applying a load change of 12.5 % is
recorded. The system is also run with a PI controller
while applying the same load changes. The variation in
level with time is shown in Figure 9 for set point of 32
cm. It is clearly indicated from the Figure that for a
sudden load change Skogestad based controller returns
to the given set point immediate. Also it is observed the Figure 7: Servo responses for a set point 10 cm
S controller follows without any overshoot for a load
change compared to PI controller. The time domain
calculations for the controllers are shown in Table 2.The
model based controller is able to compensate for the load
changes considerably better than conventional PI
controller.

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 S NITHYA et al : MODEL BASED CONTROLLER

controller indicate that it is able to compensate faster,

when compared to the conventional controller .This is
also validated by the values of performance indices like
ISE and IAE values. It is concluded that IMC is suited to
maintain the level in a tank using cost effective ADAM’s
interfacing module in real time.

Table 2: Time domain comparison

Specifications Set point PI IMC

Peak Time 7 cm 25 8.5
(Sec) 10 cm 11.03 10.4
20 cm 27.2 20.7
32 cm 62.5 42.4
%Overshoot 7 cm 8.69 6.69
10 cm 59.9 49.9
20 cm 21.96 20.4
32 cm 38.41 37.23
Settling Time 7 cm 194.9 38.9
(Sec) 10 cm 523 322
20 cm 420 152
Figure 8: Servo response for a set point 20 cm
32 cm 1000 800

Table3: Performance indices comparison

Set Controller ISE IAE

Point
IMC 52.92 68.17
7 cm
PI 846.56 345.73
IMC 388.63 264.90
10 cm
PI 886.94 523.71
IMC 288.64 179.18
20 cm
PI 1484.5 656.52
IMC 9336.0 2483.0
32 cm
Figure 9: Regulatory response for a set point 32 cm
PI 12955.0 3068.1

6. CONCULSION

In this study, an IMC based tuning is designed in real

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