Hi guys!
It seems to me that PID loops with feed forward are underutilized. Maybe it's just me but I think almost every loop would work better with some kind of feed forward component but I seldom see them in automation and process control. How come?
Right now I'm working on making some changes to a gas burner application. Standard PI loops are used to set control valves to get a certain gas flow. In this case the control valves are the linear type and the pressure is almost constant which means that there is a linear relationship between the flow you want and the control valve opening. To me that seems like a PI loop with feed forward calculating the approximate control valve output and the PI feedback fine tuning it would be a perfect match.
Do you guys use a lot of feed forward in your applications?
It seems to me that PID loops with feed forward are underutilized. Maybe it's just me but I think almost every loop would work better with some kind of feed forward component but I seldom see them in automation and process control. How come?
Right now I'm working on making some changes to a gas burner application. Standard PI loops are used to set control valves to get a certain gas flow. In this case the control valves are the linear type and the pressure is almost constant which means that there is a linear relationship between the flow you want and the control valve opening. To me that seems like a PI loop with feed forward calculating the approximate control valve output and the PI feedback fine tuning it would be a perfect match.
Do you guys use a lot of feed forward in your applications?