Optimal decoupling control method and its application to a ball mill coal-pulverizing system

The conventional optimal tracking control method cannot realize decoupling control of linear systems with a strong coupling property. To solve this problem, in this paper, an optimal decoupling control method is proposed, which can simultaneously provide optimal performance. The optimal decoupling controller is composed of an inner-loop decoupling controller and an outer-loop optimal tracking controller. First, by introducing one virtual control variable, the original differential equation on state is converted to a generalized system on output. Then, by introducing the other virtual control variable, and viewing the coupling terms as the measurable disturbances, the generalized system is open-loop decoupled. Finally, for the decoupled system, the optimal tracking control method is used. It is proved that the decoupling control is optimal for a certain performance index. Simulations on a ball mill coal-pulverizing system are conducted. The results show the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed method as compared with the conventional optimal quadratic tracking &#x0028 LQT &#x0029 control method.