Researchers at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) are developing algorithms that will help create more number of design specifications. These designs can be used on a number of industrial applications.
Industrial Automation" />industrial process control
Typically industrial controllers use derivative and integrative control actions combined with whole and preset orders. The controllers that the research team have developed are based on generalisation of orders that are fractional, with which more number of control parameters can be tuned. Concepción A. MonjeMicharet, one of the research team members explained that the control algorithm was based on fractional derivatives and integrals allowing a greater number of design specifications.
The professor further explained that these controllers can be used for automatic tuning of a number of industrial processes. The professor has been awarded the IFAC prize for the Best Paper from 2008 to 2010 from the Control Engineering Practice. This control algorithm finds a number of applications in the industry, such as regulation of liquid level systems, servo motor control, operating unmanned aircraft, pneumatic system regulation and robotic arm control. The research team is currently working on implementing the control algorithm to the humanoid robot, TEO, which is being developed at the Robotics Lab at UC3M. The research team has performed extensive research on the fractional control and calculus while performing the initial analysis for developing the algorithm. The team pointed out that the advantage provided by the system was the ability to work on simple lineal equations for easy implementation in any programmable logic device.