Fractional order control for the temperature loop in a chemical reactor

Fractional order control has been used intensively over the last decade in the control of various plants, being considered to enhance the closed loop performance, especially for time delay processes. In this paper, a fractional order PI controller is designed for the temperature control in a chemical reactor. The closed loop performance is evaluated and compared with a simple PI controller. The design approach taken in the paper is based on time domain specifications, rather than the existing frequency domain methods. The simulations show that the fractional order PI controller achieves better performance than the classical PI controller, both under nominal and uncertain conditions.