Model based fractional order controller design for process plants satisfying desired robustness criteria

Abstract: This paper contributes to the design of a fractional order (FO) internal model controller (IMC) for a first order plus time delay (FOPTD) process model to satisfy a given set of desired robustness specifications in terms of gain margin (Am) and phase margin (Pm). The highlight of the design is the choice of a fractional order (FO) filter in the IMC structure which has two parameters (lambda and beta) to tune as compared to only one tuning parameter (lambda) for traditionally used integer order (IO) filter. These parameters are evaluated for the controller, so that Am and Pm can be chosen independently. A new methodology is proposed to find a complete solution for controller parameters, the methodology also gives the system gain cross-over frequency (wg) and phase cross-over frequency (wp). Moreover, the solution is found without any approximation of the delay term appearing in the controller.