Internal model control based sliding mode controller design for unstable second order delayed processes with a case study on CSTR

Controlling the unstable processes is challenging since one or more poles are located on the right side of the s-plane. The existence of dead time in these systems makes control much more difficult. In this paper, internal model control based sliding mode control has been proposed for the control of unstable processes with dead time. Two sliding surfaces based on PID and PIDPI are used to design of the proposed controller. The parameters of continuous and discontinuous control law are obtained using differential evolution optimization technique. An objective function is constituted in terms of performance measure (integral absolute error) and control effort measure (total variation of controller output). Illustrative examples demonstrate the superiority of the proposed controller over earlier reported work in this realm, especially in terms of load disturbance rejection. A case study on temperature management of a continuous stirred tank reactor during an irreversible exothermic process also serves to highlight the applicability of the proposed system. Furthermore, robustness of the proposed controller is also investigated by inclusion of perturbations in the parameters. The obtained results clearly show how well the suggested controller works.