A study of gain scheduling control applied to an exothermic CSTR

This paper describes how gain scheduling control is applied to a continuous stirred tank reactor model. The CSTR process, equipped with a cooling system, is modelled. Based on the resulting nonlinear model, a gain scheduling controller is designed. The gain scheduling follows a scheme denoted bias compensation. Compared to earlier reported gain scheduling schemes, the proposed scheme results in a controller that is less complex, which is advantageous in the controller implementation stage. Numerous simulations are performed, using the gain scheduling controller and two choices of control input to the reactor model. The simulation results indicate that a gain scheduling controller performs better than a linear controller. Simulations using different choices of control input to the reactor model indicate that proper process design is crucial for the controlled process performance.