Offset-Free Quasi-Infinite Horizon Nonlinear Model Predictive Controller Design Using Parameter Adaptation

This paper proposes an offset-free Quasi-Infinite Horizon Nonlinear Model Predictive Controller (QIH-NMPC) using online parameter adaptation. In the proposed method, the adaptation law is modeled by a first order differential equation as a function of the tracking error and subsequently combined with a QIH-NMPC algorithm for online updating of the unknown parameter. The effectiveness of the proposed control scheme is demonstrated on a continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR) and an experimental cascaded three-tank system with uncertain model parameters, structural plant/model mismatch and noisy measurements. For the purpose of comparison, the state-of-the-art online state and parameter estimators such as moving horizon estimation (MHE) and extended Kalman filter (EKF) were also incorporated into QIH-NMPC algorithm. The simulation and experimental results obtained showed the efficacy of the proposed adaptation scheme as it demonstrated a comparable performance to standard estimators (MHE and EKF) although with a lesser computational time.