Output feedback distributed economic model predictive control for parallel system in process networks

Abstract This paper proposes a distributed economic model predictive control algorithm for parallel systems which uses only output feedback. Such parallel systems are a fundamental system architecture frequently encountered in process networks where, in many cases, the state of the plant is not measurable. Economic performance is a key consideration in the operation of such industrial plants and it is of interest to develop theoretically rigorous approaches to tackle what is a practically very relevant scenario. The competitive couplings and competitive constraints inherent in parallel systems are explicitly addressed in the proposed controller design framework. Three measures are considered for optimization of such parallel systems including an economic stage cost function, energy efficiency and tracking accuracy. An economic cost function is optimized by the resulting distributed controller which can realize global control performance while also reducing the computational time for large-scale parallel systems. Stability of the system is formally proved using the principles of dissipativity. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed theoretical approach is verified by both numerical simulation and experimentation to demonstrate practical relevance.