DESIGN, IMPLEMENTATION, AND REAL-TIME SIMULATION OF A CONTROLLER-BASED DECOUPLED CSTR MIMO CLOSED LOOP SYSTEM

In this paper, dynamic decoupling control design strategies for the MIMO Continuous Stirred Tank Reactor (CSTR) process characterised by nonlinearities, loop interaction and the potentially unstable dynamics, are presented. Simulations of the behavior of the closed loop decoupled system are performed in Matlab/Simulink. Software transformation technique is proposed to build a real-time module of the developed in Matlab/Simulink environment software modules and to transfer it to the real-time environment of TwinCAT 3.1 software of the Beckhoff PLC. The simulation results from the investigations done in Simulink and TwinCAT 3.1 software platforms have shown the suitability and the potentials of the method for design of the decoupling controller and of merging the Matlab/Simulink control function blocks into the TwinCAT 3.1 function blocks in real-time. The merits derived from such integration imply that the existing software and its components can be re-used. The paper contributes to implementation of the industrial requirements for portability and interoperability of the PLC software.