EID–MPC control and disturbance suppression of cement decomposition furnace with time delay

Abstract The temperature control of the outlet of the decomposition furnace in the cement production process is subject to challenges such as a significant time delay and multiple disturbances. In order to reduce energy consumption, refuse derived fuel (RDF) is added at the inlet of the decomposer as a fuel to replace part of the pulverised coal, which is an unmeasurable disturbance with a time delay and cannot be effectively handled by a traditional control system. Consequently, this paper combines equivalent‐input‐disturbance (EID) and model predictive control (MPC) to suppress and track disturbances, including RDF, that exist in the temperature control of the decomposer outlet. The Lyapunov–Krasovskii function and Wirtinger‐based integral inequality are employed to ascertain the stability conditions of the system, from which the controller parameters are determined. Finally, simulations were conducted based on the classical decomposition furnace system model. The results show that the proposed system can effectively suppress the unmeasurable disturbances in the time‐delay system, which has a disturbance suppression capability that is many times greater than that of the general MPC controller.