Conical Tank Level Control using Fractional Order PID Controllers: A Simulated and Experimental Study

Abstract

In this paper, simulated and experimental results on the conical tank level control are presented. PI/PID controllers of integer order (IO) as well as of fractional order (FO) are studied and compared. The tuning parameters are obtained first by using root locus (RL) and Ziegler and Nichols methods, for comparison purposes. Next, particle swarm optimization (PSO) is employed to determine the optimal controllers’ parameters using as fitness function the integral of the absolute value of tracking error (IAE). From the experimental results it is concluded that PI/FOPI are the controllers presenting the lowest IAE indexes, whereas PID/FOPID controllers present the lowest energy consumption by the control signal. Keywords: Level control, conical tank, PID control, fractional PID control, experimental control