Systematic Design of Split Range Controllers

Abstract Split range control is a common advanced control structure in the process industry. It is primarily used to extend the steady-state operating range by using more than one manipulated variable (MV). More generally it is used to switch to another MV when the original MV saturates. We propose a systematic procedure to design a split range controller considering the (different) dynamic effects of each MV on the output, as well as (steady-state) economics. We illustrate this procedure with a practical example.