Fractional-Order Water Level Control Based on PLC: Hardware-In-The-Loop Simulation and Experimental Validation

An industrial-oriented water tank level control system with PLC- and Simulink-based fractional-order controller realizations is presented. The discrete fractional-order and integer-order PID implementations are realized via the PLC and Simulink simulator. The benefits of the fractional-order PID compared to the integer-order PID control are confirmed by the hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulations and experiments. HIL simulations are realized using real-time communication between PLC and Simulink. The fractional-order controller is obtained for a desired phase/gain margin and validated via HIL simulations and experimental measurements.