Improved linear quadratic and proportional control system for improved liquid level system regulation in a coke fractionation tower

A new linear quadratic regulation (LQ) control plus a proportional (P) control system is proposed for the level regulation in an industrial coke fractionation tower. The process is first stabilized using a P controller and then a subsequent LQ controller is designed for the P control system. The P control system is modeled as a generalized first order plus dead time (FOPDT) process using step-response test and the LQ-P controller is designed through a new state space structure. Performance in terms of regulatory and servo issues were investigated. Simulation results showed that the proposed method is more robust and improves performance than traditional model predictive control.