Predictive controller with estimation of measurable

disturbances. Application to an olive oil mill

C. Bordons*, J.R. Cueli
Escuela Superior de Ingenieros. Universidad de Sevilla, Camino de los Descubrimientos, s/n. 41092 Sevilla, Spain
Received 11 November 2002; received in revised form 6 June 2003; accepted 13 June 2003
Abstract
This paper describes the application of a predictive controller that deals with measurable disturbances in the extraction process in
an olive oil mill. The work focuses on the thermal part of the process, where the raw material is prepared for the mechanical
separation. The system under consideration can be viewed as composed of several changing-level stirred tanks. The paper shows the
development of the controller based upon a model obtained from rst principles combined with experimental results and validated
with real data. Strong disturbances and large time delays appear in the process, so predictive control strategies have been tested
under linear and nonlinear simulation. Finally, they have been implemented on the real plant. A study about the consideration of
dierent models for the estimation of measurable disturbances along the prediction horizon has been carried out, showing that a
good performance can be obtained by the use of an appropriate model. A new idea that can improve periodic disturbance rejection
in Model Based Predictive controllers is presented.
#2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Process control; Predictive control; Agricultural processes
1. Introduction
The automatic control of the extraction of oil out of
olives is still an open eld, since many installations are
usually operated in manual mode [10]. As olive oil mills
are becoming bigger the opportunities for automation
are increasing, therefore it is important to acquire the
necessary knowledge of the process behaviour in order
to design the appropriate control strategies.
The process is composed of several operations: recol-
lection and reception of raw material (olives), washing,
preparation, extraction, and storage of the produced oil
[5]. Fig. 1 shows the most important phases of the pro-
cess: preparation and extraction.
The preparation phase is crucial for the whole pro-
cess; it consists of two sub-processes. The rst one is
olive crushing by a special mill, whose objective is to
destroy the olive cells where oil is stored. The second
one aims at homogenizing the paste by stirring it while
its temperature is kept constant at a specic value
(around 35

C). This is performed by a machine called a
thermomixer, which homogenizes the three phases of the
paste (oil, water and a by-product) while it exchanges
energy with surrounding pipes of hot water. This is
done in order to facilitate oil extraction in the following
process: mechanical separation in the decanter. This
paper is focused on thermomixer control since homo-
genization is crucial in the entire process. Bad opera-
tional conditions in the thermomixer can dramatically
reduce the quality and quantity of the nal product.
There are three main obstacles that appear when try-
ing to maintain the optimal operating conditions in the
thermomixer. The rst one is the existence of large
delays (around one and a half hours) because of the
thermal nature of the process. The predictive controller
treats the delays in a convenient way. The second
obstacle is caused by the ono mechanism of feeding
the paste, so the inlet paste ow does not reach a con-
stant value. These changes introduce periodic variations
in level and therefore temperature changes since the
quantity of product inside the machine varies. As the
level can be easily measured, it can be considered as a
measurable disturbance and hence can be taken into
account by the predictive algorithm as a feedforward
0959-1524/$ - see front matter # 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/S0959-1524(03)00043-X
Journal of Process Control 14 (2004) 305315
www.elsevier.com/locate/jprocont
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +34-954487348; fax: +34-
954487340.
E-mail addresses: bordons@cartuja.us.es (C. Bordons), cueli@
action. The third diculty usually takes place at the
beginning or the end of the campaign. The process is
frequently interrupted because of the heterogeneity and
low quantity (and often, low quality) of raw material.
When the process is stopped and restarted, the tem-
perature inside the thermomixer increases rapidly.
The paper is organized as follows: In Section 2, a
description of the process is presented, whose model is
obtained in Section 3 using nonlinear dierential equa-
tions. This model is validated with real data obtained
from the process. The proposed control strategy is
described in Section 4. The simulated and real results
obtained when applying the predictive controller are
described in Section 5 and nally the major conclusions
to be drawn are given in the last section.
2. Plant description
The system considered corresponds to a thermomixer,
whose main objective is to homogenize the three phases
of the paste (oil, water and the by-product) and keep it
at a desired temperature in order to facilitate oil
extraction. Heating of the paste is achieved by means of
hot water circulating through a jacket. The machine is
divided into dierent (usually two, three or four) tanks
or bodies, each one with revolving blades to facilitate
homogenizing. The bodies are composed of semi-cylin-
ders about 3 m long with a diameter of 1 m. Paste is
dropped over one side of the rst body and pushed by
the revolving blades which make the paste fall down to
the second body through the overow and so on. The
existence of several bodies allows a gradual temperature
increment along the thermomixer, since abrupt changes
in paste temperature would aect the quality of the end
product.
Each body has its own water jacket. The water circuit is
connected in parallel, so the same quantity of water ows
for each of the jackets. We can only set the total water
ow (which is shared equally amongst all the bodies).
The paste is heated in order to facilitate mixing since
the paste turns more liquid as the temperature rises.
However, there exists a maximum temperature at which
olive oil loses quality (avour, fragrance, etc.) due to the
oxidation process and the loss of volatile components.
The feeding of the machine with the paste coming
from the crushing mill is done by an ono level con-
troller. This controller turns the feeding pump on when
the level is low and turns it o when it reaches a max-
imum. Therefore, the evolution of the level resembles a
kind of saw-tooth wave, which has a great inuence on
temperature, constituting an important disturbance.
Another disturbance that appears in this process is the
temperature of the heating water. It comes from a boiler
that supplies hot water to several processes in the fac-
tory, so it is aected by load changes.
Therefore, the outlet temperature presents oscillations
at the frequency of level variations with changes pro-
duced by heating water variation. The controller must
be able to reduce the eect of these disturbances as
much as possible. Level and water temperature can
easily be measured and future level evolution can be
predicted as shown later. Fig. 2 shows level evolution in
the last body and also the random variations of inlet
water temperature. It is clear that a more ecient per-
formance could be obtained by a good design in the
feeding system that keeps the level constant, but this is
the kind of level control system that is installed in most
olive oil mills due to cost reasons. Therefore, in order to
address the current problem, this disturbance has been
considered as something external to the proposed con-
trol solution.
Fig. 1. Process.
306 C. Bordons, J.R. Cueli / Journal of Process Control 14 (2004) 305315
3. Process model
3.1. Thermodynamical model
The dynamic equations for the plant can be obtained
directly applying balance laws to the system [12]. The
energy balance equations for each body are:
d m C
e
T ( )
dt
= F
i
C
e
T
i
F
o
C
e
T Q Q
l
1
Q
f
d m
w
C
e
w
T
w

dt
= F
w
C
e
w
T
i
w
T
w

Q Q
l
2
Q = K
s
T
w
T ( )
Q
l
1;2
= k
l
1;2
T T
a
( ) (1)
As there are no direct measures of inlet olive mass
ow, it has to be estimated from the level and outlet
mass ow. The estimation has to be ltered because of
the noise, but the result is acceptable for our purposes.
The approximate relation is given by the following mass
balance equation:
d S
b
L ( )
dt
= F
i
F
o
(2)
The physical meaning of the variables are showed in
Table 1. Although the exact values of some parameters are
known, the values of the unknown parameters have to be
tted by means of a RMS validation procedure, obtaining
a model that gives a reasonable t to the real system.
The complete model [2] can be obtained assembling the
models for the three bodies in cascading sequence, and
then including time delays between two consecutive bodies.
3.2. Model validation
This model has been validated using real data obtained
from an olive-oil mill located in Ma laga (Spain). This
data was used to estimate many of the parameters that
appear in the model which are not perfectly known, since
they depend on several circumstances: type and moisture
of olives, soil in the heating circuit, etc.
Fig. 2. Measurable disturbances.
Table 1
Model variables
Variable Physical meaning
m, m
w
Mass of paste and water in the jacket
C
e
; C
ew
Specic heat of paste and water
T, T
w
Paste and water temperature
T
i
; T
iw
Inlet paste and water temperature
F
i
, F
o
Inlet and outlet paste ow
T
a
Ambient temperature
F
w
Water ow
Q Exchanged heat
Q
l1;2
Loss heat
Q
f
Friction heat
K
s
Heat transfer coecient
k
l1;2
Loss factors
S
b
Cross section of the body
L Measured level
Paste density
C. Bordons, J.R. Cueli / Journal of Process Control 14 (2004) 305315 307
Fig. 3 shows a comparison of real and simulated
output obtained with real input data. The error can be
dierent depending on external factors and values that
can change, (e.g. inlet paste density, which is not
homogeneous, or heat transfer coecient).
3.3. Linear model
A linear model has been developed in order to design
a simple, linear predictive controller that runs on a
Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) with low com-
putational capabilities. The linear model could be
obtained from step tests in the real plant but, in fact, it
is dicult to do step tests since it is not possible to keep
some variables in steady state while performing step
tests in others. For instance, since feeding is done in an
on-o way, level cannot be kept constant while a step in
inlet temperature is performed. Therefore, the linear
model is obtained by performing tests in the nonlinear
model. All manipulated variables can be changed inde-
pendently to see their inuence on temperature beha-
viour. It is possible to nd linear models with the results
obtained from simulations using simple identication
techniques [11] or even the reaction curve method [3].
The models needed for control must predict correctly
the nal paste temperature (the paste that leaves the last
body of the thermomixer) as a function of hot water
ow, level, and temperature of the heating water.
After several simulations, the following models were
obtained, in the form of a CARIMA description:
A z
1

y t ( ) = B z
1

u t ( )
e t ( )
D
: (3)
Numerical values for the model that gives tempera-
ture as a function of the hot water ow are:
B z
1

= 4:315 10
5
z
5
A z
1

= 1 0:92z
1
: (4)
Temperature with respect to level:
B z
1

= 0:0028z
3
A z
1

= 1 0:8825z
1
: (5)
Temperature with respect to water temperature:
B z
1

= 0:0093z
3
A z
1

= 1 0:926z
1
: (6)
The model used in simulation has a sample time of
100 s. Fig. 4 shows the predictions of temperature using
linear model with a prediction horizon of seven, which
is the one that will be used by the predictive controller,
compared with real data. This corresponds to a new set
of data not used to build the model.
Fig. 3. Measured and simulated temperature.
308 C. Bordons, J.R. Cueli / Journal of Process Control 14 (2004) 305315
4. Controller synthesis
The control objective is to maintain the operating
conditions in the thermomixer, that is equivalent to
keep the temperature of the last body as constant as
possible in spite of disturbances (level, and variations in
hot water temperature). The manipulated variable is the
hot water ow.
The process is characterized by big deadtimes in tem-
perature dynamics. Moreover, the eect of dis-
turbances, mainly level, on the controlled variable
shows fast dynamics (mainly at high production rates).
This fact makes disturbance rejection more dicult and
implies the necessity of a control strategy that eliminates
the eect of level disturbance, at least in the nominal
case.
Model Predictive Control (MPC) can be an interest-
ing candidate to control this system. There are many
applications of several predictive controllers in industry
[8,9] and also several formulations depending mainly on
the type of model used to predict future plant evolution.
If a linear convolution model is used, MPC results in the
well-known DMC algorithm (presented in [6]). This
control algorithm, as shown in [4], can easily deal with
measurable disturbances and constraints.
Moreover, predictive formulation would let us have a
dierent objective function. In eect, we can formulate
a dierent objective function equal to a weighted sum of
the temperatures in the three bodies. It could improve
the closed loop performance, decreasing the possible
overshot. In our case study, only the temperature in the
third tank is taken into account in the objective function.
Disturbance rejection capabilities can be improved by
the estimation of the future disturbance values in the
controlled variable prediction model. That is, the cur-
rent value of the disturbance is known at the sampling
time, but also its future evolution along the horizon can
be estimated since it aects the process predicted output
(temperature). This is a slight improvement with respect
to standard MPC algorithms (such as DMC or GPC),
which consider that disturbances are kept constant (and
equal to their current value) in the future (see [7] for
instance). The information that provides this future evo-
lution is very important in this case, allowing the con-
troller to anticipate its inuence on the process output.
In this application, as the main disturbance acting on
the output (level) exhibits a predictable behaviour, the
control law is calculated considering an Auto-Regres-
sive (AR) model of disturbance. Periodic disturbance
rejection is also treated in [1]. Therefore the AR model
is not used to estimate the actual values of the dis-
turbances, but utilized as an instrument to improve the
prediction of future values of the disturbances. So, the
prediction of the controlled variable must be also
enhanced. The identied AR polynomial is:
A z
1

= 1 1:589z
1
1:696z
2
1:178z
3
0:697z
4
: (7)
Fig. 4. Validation linear prediction model.
C. Bordons, J.R. Cueli / Journal of Process Control 14 (2004) 305315 309
When disturbances model is included in the prediction,
the control law that minimizes the general cost function:
J =
X
p
i=1
y^ t i ( ) w t i ( ) [ ]
2
l
X
m1
i=0
Du t i ( ) [ ]
2
(8)
is given by (see [2]):
u = G
t
G lI

1
G
t
w f
u
f
^
d
h i
(9)
where
+ u is the vector of future control action increments
+ f
u
is the calculated free response without dis-
turbances
+ w is the reference trajectory
+ f
^
d
is the estimated value of the free response due
to measurable disturbances and can be calculated
using the following equation
f
^
d
t i ( ) =
X
i1
k=0
g
k
Dd
^
t i k ( )
X
N
k=i
g
k
Dd t i k ( ) (10)
where g
k
are the samples of the truncated step response
and d(t) is the increment of the disturbance signal at
time t and the AR prediction is given by:
d
^
t ( ) =
X
N
i=1
a
i
d t i ( ) (11)
The terms that depend on future values of the dis-
turbances are separated from the directly measured
ones. The rst part in the sum is assumed to be zero in
standard MPC formulations [3]. This means that the
polynomial AR is equal to 1z
1
, which is equivalent to
the assumption that future values of disturbance equal
its current value.
Therefore, the control algorithm (MPC with Auto-
Regressive model for the measurable disturbances or
MPC-AR) is reduced to the steps shown in the table:
Algorithm 1. The controller presented here has been
devised to be implemented in low-cost control equip-
ment, as is the case of a PLC. This can be done since
only part of the algorithm is calculated in real time. The
most demanding part of MPC (MPC-AR). Compute
the free response as in a basic MPC algorithm. Add the
term due to measurable AR disturbance as shown in
(10), (11). Calculate the control law with Eq. (9).
[the optimization, that corresponds to Eq. (9)] is
done beforehand, since the model is known and the
only part to be calculated at every sampling time is
the free response of the system. Should the model
change with time, the control law parameters will be
updated by a higher-level routine running on the
SCADA computer.
A solution based on a PID with feedforward action is
also possible, but, in this case, measurable disturbances
cannot be eliminated since the eect of the manipulated
variable in the process output is slower than the eect of
disturbances (mainly level). This could be solved with
the addition of a disturbance predictor. A Smith pre-
dictor should also be included to deal with the long
deadtime. Notice that the proposed strategy addresses
all these issues with one controller and just one tuning
parameter (the control weighting factor) and is in fact
an optimal controller.
5. Results
This section presents the results obtained when
applying the previously dened control strategy to the
real plant. Before implementing it in the plant, the con-
troller was tested under simulation.
5.1. Simulation
Fig. 5 shows the eect of disturbance estimation on
the outlet temperature. It shows the clear eect of
including the AR model of level in the control algo-
rithm. Notice the improvement of the output response
when considering measurable disturbances. The dotted
line is a simple MPC algorithm, without considering
measurable disturbances. The next approach (thin solid
line) includes specically constant disturbances along
the horizon and the next strategy (bold line) uses an AR
model to estimate future evolution of disturbances.
Although the output has been simulated with the linear
model of the plant, the tests have been done using
values of level evolution obtained from the real plant.
5.2. Real plant
Several tests have been done on the real plant. The
experiments have been carried out in dierent situations
since it is very dicult to obtain the same operational
conditions on dierent days because of the continuously
changing raw material. Several tunings of the controller
(using dierent weighting factors and dierent dis-
turbance models) have been tested. The controller runs
on a PLC, where the control law can be switched to an
existing PID controller for comparison. The PID was
tuned manually by trained personnel.
Table 2 shows the root mean square error of the
temperature, comparing a PID with feedforward to the
proposed MPC control. Results with changes in tem-
perature set point are also presented.
Figs. 6 and 7 show the controlled temperature into the
last body when the set point changes in real tests.
MPC-AR is able to reach the set point faster than PID,
which ever continuously oscillates around the set point.
310 C. Bordons, J.R. Cueli / Journal of Process Control 14 (2004) 305315
The control action of PID is obviously slower, and it
cannot be accelerated much more without losing stability.
Fig. 8 presents two dierent tests of the designed
MPC controller in the real plant, performed during the
intermediate dates of the campaign, in which the pro-
cess is often quite stabilized. The rst one corresponds
Fig. 5. Results from linear simulator.
Table 2
Fits obtained with PID and proposed MPC in real plant
Error (

C) PID MPC-AR
Regulation 2.1 0.5
Tracking 2.9 0.9
Fig. 6. Changes in the set point, PID control.
C. Bordons, J.R. Cueli / Journal of Process Control 14 (2004) 305315 311
to an MPC with a small value for the control weighting
factor (l) and no measurable disturbances considered.
The second one shows the same controller with a bigger
value of l, giving a slower control. The l parameter
denes the aggressiveness of the controller. If we set a l
value very small, the closed loop system behaves faster,
but it loses robustness. In this application, the ts
achieved in both cases are similar, because a faster con-
trol induces more high frequency noise. Although the t
in the rst case is slightly better, it is preferable to have
a more robust and smoother control.
The biggest benets of the inclusion of AR model for
measurable disturbances can be obtained at the end of
the olive season, when the operational conditions are
Fig. 7. Changes in the set point MPC-AR control.
Fig. 8. MPC with dierent values for l.
312 C. Bordons, J.R. Cueli / Journal of Process Control 14 (2004) 305315
not stationary and aect level evolution. In the rst case
(Fig. 9, upper graph) the behaviour of the temperature
is not good, with considerable oscillations around the
setpoint, although it is the same controller that has
shown good performance during the intermediate dates
of the campaign. The performance is clearly improved
with the AR model (Fig. 9, lower graph), under the
same conditions (similar evolution of level and water
temperature), showing that the proposed algorithm is a
viable solution to the problem. Fig. 10 shows tempera-
ture evolution at the end of the olive season as well as
disturbances evolution.
Fig. 9. MPC at the end of olive season.
Fig. 10. MPC-AR at the end of olive season.
C. Bordons, J.R. Cueli / Journal of Process Control 14 (2004) 305315 313
Notice that an important feature of this control
strategy is the ability to deal with level oscillations
caused by the feeding mechanism and that this is due to
the design of existing thermomixers. After analyzing the
behaviour of the plant in dierent conditions, it can be
deduced that a redesign of the feeding mechanism can
provide a great improvement in performance. Fig. 11
shows the evolution (simulated with the nonlinear
model of the plant) of outlet temperature in case level is
controlled, but still hot water disturbances continue
being present. An equipment redesign can clearly con-
tribute to a better process operation.
6. Conclusions
This work has presented an application of predictive
control to an olive oil mill. The method was developed
as a result of studies for the control of a real plant,
where real data has been taken for validating the model,
and includes an AR prediction model for the measur-
able disturbances. The control strategy has been tested
during this campaign, and it has been compared with
the existent classical PID controller plus feedforward
action.
Simulation and plant results have shown that a MPC
considering the prediction of future level variations can
be a recommendable solution for the problem that exists
in the real plant.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge E.F. Cama-
cho and A. Nu n ez Reyes, for collaborating in the pro-
ject and people from Sociedad Cooperativa Ntra. Sra.
de los Remedios and Procisa for their help in carrying
out the tests. This work has been supported by the
Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology under the
grant DPI2001-2380-C02-01.
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