NON-DIAGONAL MIMO ROBUST CONTROL FOR A 4×4 ELECTRICAL INDUSTRIAL FURNACE

Over the past two decades, composite materials are kind of central to most aspects of the industry thanks to, among others, their light weight, strength and stiffness. This paper addresses the temperature control of a multivariable industrial furnace destined to manufacture large composite pieces. An accurate and homogeneous control of the temperatures involved is essential to guarantee the cured product quality and to meet the industrial requirements. A Multi-Input Multi-Output (MIMO) robust compensator able to govern the furnace temperature despite the disturbances (exothermic reactions) and loop interactions are developed in this work. The MIMO methodology for the nondiagonal controller design is based on the Quantitative Feedback Theory (QFT).