Predictive Functional Control – ScilabTEC 2015

By Jacques Richalet

ScilabTEC 2015 - J. Richalet from Scilab on Vimeo.

Introduced in 1968, PFC is nowadays applied in many different types of industrial units, worldwide. PFC is a model based controller, ranging from very fast mechanical processes to slow industrial production units. It is mainly taught in technical schools. The fact that there is no explicit integrator in the controller is appreciated by industrial users. PFC is a controller with “2 manipulated variables MV/ and 2 controlled variables CV”, but most of the applications are with one MV and one CV. Time delay, constraints on MV and CV, feed forward, cascaded control, etc. are accessible. PFC provides an alternative to PID, and expands the domain of applications where PID is not efficient enough. PFC is now available in Scilab, and its libraries include multiple control types covering diverse applications.