The paper is focused on the identification, control design, and experimental verification of a two-input two-output hot-air laboratory apparatus representing a small-scale version of appliances widely used in the industry. A decentralized multivariable controller design is proposed, satisfying control-loop decoupling and measurable disturbance rejection. The proposed inverted or equivalent noninverted decoupling controllers serve for the rejection of cross-interactions in controlled loops, whereas open-loop antidisturbance members satisfy the absolute invariance to the disturbances. Explicit controller-structure design formulae are derived, and their equivalence to other decoupling schemes is proven. Three tuning rules are used to set primary controller parameters, which are further discretized. All the control responses are simulated in the Matlab/Simulink environment. In the experimental part, two data-acquisition, communication, and control interfaces are set up. Namely, a programmable logic controller and a computer equipped with the peripheral component interconnect card commonly used in industrial practice are implemented. A simple supervisory control and data acquisition human-machine interface via the Control Web environment is developed. The laboratory experiments prove better temperature control performance measured by integral criteria by 35.3%, less energy consumption by up to 6%, and control effort of mechanical actuator parts by up to 17.1% for our method compared to the coupled or disturbance-ignoring design in practice. It was also observed that the use of a programmable logic controller gives better performance measures for both temperature and air-flow control.

Centre for Security Information and Advanced Technologies Faculty of Applied Informatics Tomas Bata University in Zlín Nad Stráněmi 4511 760 05 760 01 Zlín Czech Republic

Department of Automation and Control Engineering Faculty of Applied Informatics Tomas Bata University in Zlín Nad Stráněmi 4511 760 05 Zlín Czech Republic

Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering University of Calgary Energy Environment and Experiential Learning Building 750 Campus Dr NW Calgary AB T2N 4H9 Canada

Department of Energy and Power Engineering School of Mechanical Engineering Beijing Institute of Technology Engine East Building 125 Beijing 100081 China

School of Mechanical Engineering and Automation Harbin Institute of Technology Schenzhen Xili University Town Guangdong 518055 China

TEAZ s r o tř Tomáše Bati č p 1658 Otrokovice 765 02 Czech Republic

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