SPEED CONTROL OF AN EXPERIMENTAL HOT-ROLLING MILL USING

GENERALISED PREDICTIVE CONTROL

Miguel Angel Gama and Mahdi Mahfouf

IMMPETUS (Institute for Microstructural and Mechanical Process

Engineering: The University of Sheffield)
Department of Automatic Control and Systems Engineering
The University of Sheffield, Sheffield S1 3JD, UK

Abstract: The application of Generalised Predictive Control (GPC) for an experimental

hot-rolling mill is presented in this paper. GPC has been implemented to provide the mill
with good speed control and regulation when steel and aluminium hot-rolling experiments
are carried out. Using an identification mechanism, GPC first estimates the mill’s model
and predict the future behaviour of the rolling speed to finally calculate a sequence of
future control actions. The performance of GPC was evaluated via simulations and real-
time experiments under different operating conditions. From such experiments it can be
concluded that the proposed control scheme performs reasonably well, showing good
robustness and disturbance rejection in all operating modes. Copyright © 2006 IFAC
Keywords: Hot rolling, rolling mills, GPC, induction motor drives, modelling, simulation

1. INTRODUCTION and aluminium microstructure evolution in hot-

Rolling speed is one of the most important variables
in the steel- and aluminium-making process. At high
rolling speed, the strain of the material and rolling
load are increased, which improves the contact
between the sample and the roll. The rolling speed
for the hot working of the sample also affects the
properties of the metal. For instance, higher rolling
speed increases the work hardening and strain rate,
therefore higher strength metals are produced.
Increased rolling speed can also reduce the contact
time of metal and hence reducing the heat loss during
the process. On the other hand, the slower the speed
in the mill, the higher the permissible reduction
without danger of damaging the metal surface
(Dieter, 1988). An experimental laboratory-scale hot-
rolling mill, located in the Department of
Engineering Materials at Sheffield University, is
used as part of the research undertaken by
IMMPETUS (Institute for Microstructural and
Mechanical Process Engineering: The University of
Sheffield), which falls into the investigation of steel
rolling. For accurate control of the microstructure,
the rolling mill has to be set up so as to accomplish a
predefined rolling schedule, which includes the speed
at which the stock is to be rolled.
The application of the Generalised Predictive Control
(GPC) for the speed control problem of the Hille-mill
is presented in this paper. GPC has received
increasing attention for over two decades within
academia because of its robustness and flexibility to
control complex systems. It appears to easily
overcome control problems in only one algorithm,
and it has been proposed for being suitable as a
“general purpose” algorithm for the stable control of
the majority of real processes (Clarke, et al., 1987a).
GPC is a model-based method which predicts the
output of the plant over a time horizon based on the
assumption about future controller output sequences.
Furthermore, it can be extended to include system
constraints to add consistency to the concept of
“optimal” control solution (Mahfouf and Linkens,
1998).
Fig. 1. General configuration of the experimental hot-rolling Hille-mill based at the University of Sheffield.

The main focus of this paper is on the use of a

predictive controller to guarantee optimal d 1
performance under a wide range of operating
ωm = (TEM − Tshm − Bmωm ) (1)
dt Jm
conditions. This work is organized as follows: the
system description and modelling framework are d 1 ⎡ ⎛T ⎞ ⎤
ωg = ⎢Tshm − ⎜ shr ⎟ − B g ω g ⎥ (2)
presented in Section 2. In Section 3, the algorithms dt Jg ⎢ ⎜ Rg ⎟ ⎥⎦
⎣ ⎝ ⎠
for both GPC and the model identification
mechanism are discussed. Section 4 shows the
simulation results for two different study-cases. The
d
dt
ωr =
1
Jr
[ ( ) ]
Tshr − TLOAD − Br ± Bdry ⋅ ω r (3)
performance of the control system is examined by
real-time experiments in Section 5. Finally,
d
dt
(
Tshm = K shm ω m − ω g ) (4)
concluding remarks are presented in Section 6.
d ⎛ ωg ⎞
Tshr = K shr ⎜ − ωr ⎟ (5)
2. SYSTEM DESCRIPTION AND MODELLING dt ⎜ Rg ⎟
⎝ ⎠
The aim of this section is to describe the theoretical where ω represents speed, J inertia, and B refers to
background behind the mathematical model used to the friction coefficient of the roll shaft r, gear shaft g,
represent the dynamical behaviour of the rolling mill. and motor shaft m. Also, Rg is the gearbox ratio,
Fig. 1 shows the general configuration of the TLOAD is the load torque, TEM is the electromagnetic
experimental hot-rolling mill which is under torque developed by the motor, Tshm and Tshr are the
investigation. The induction motor is fed by a power strain torque of the motor and roll shafts respectively.
converter which modulates the frequency and the Kshm and Kshr are the torsional spring rates of the
amplitude of the ac voltage supplied by the grid, so motor shaft and roll shaft respectively. It is worth
that it provides mechanical torque to the mill at noting that in the Hille-mill, several types of friction
certain speed. A gearbox is used as a means of may co-exist. It is assumed that the frictions within
coupling and to reduce the speed in the mechanical the motor and the gearbox are viscous, while those in
system. As shown in Fig. 1, the system has been the mill (rolls and other rotational parts) are a
fully instrumented with sensors and digital devices combination of both viscous and dry friction, Bdry
interfaced to a PC system, which allows for (Mahfouf, et al., 2004).
monitoring and control, as well as the storage of
experimental data through a data acquisition (DAQ) The main electric drive is comprised of a balanced 3-
system. Also, all the reference signals, rolling phase voltage source, a power converter, and a 20HP,
schedule, and stock characteristics are set via the PC. 400V, 1500 RPM, 50Hz ac induction motor. The
drive has the capability to reach twice the motor
For modelling purposes, the mechanical elements rated speed by means of applying modulated voltage
(shafts and gears) are treated as flexible links to to the stator terminals. The voltage equations for the
obtain a more detailed representation, so that the induction motor model are given in the qd-reference
effects of torsional spring rates are present in the frame as follows (Krause, 2002):
shafts, and they affect the rolling speed. The
differential equations for the mechanical system are
as follows:
 d qd 0
v qd
s
0
= rs i qd
s
0
+ ω e ψ dq
s + ψs (6)
dt
d qd 0
0 = rr i qd
r
0
+ (ω e − ω m )ψ dq
r + ψr (7)
dt

where v, i and ψ are voltage, current, and flux

linkages respectively in vector form containing their
qd0-components; r is a diagonal matrix representing
the winding resistance. In the above equations the
subscripts s and r denote variables associated to
stator and rotor windings respectively. ωe represents Fig. 2. Block diagram of the model-based GPC.
the angular velocity of the qd-reference frame. The
equation of the electromagnetic torque is given by The controller computes the control action using
the following equation: optimization of the following cost function:

( ) ∑ ⎡⎢⎣(P( z −1) yˆ (t + j) − w(t + j ) ⎤⎥⎦ +

N2
⎛ 3 ⎞⎛ P ⎞ 2
T EM = ⎜ ⎟⎜ ⎟ ψ sd i sq −ψ sq i sd (8) J GPC =
⎝ 2 ⎠⎝ 2 ⎠ j = N1

∑ [(λ ( j)∆u(t + j − 1)2 ]

where P is the number of poles (Ong, 1998). In this
work, Field-Oriented Control (FOC) is used to
control the electromagnetic torque both in
simulations and in the real-time system, so that the
drive acts as a torque transducer wherein the
electromagnetic torque can nearly instantaneously be
made equal to a torque command. Under this scheme
speed control is dramatically simplified because all
the electrical dynamics of the motor drive become
irrelevant to the speed control problem.
3. THE GPC ALGORITHM
The aim of this section is to describe the design and
development of the speed controller. GPC’s real
power lies on several factors: (1) the process model
is built upon a CARIMA (Controlled Autoregressive
Integrated Moving Average) model which solves
offset problems inherently; (2) its ease of
implementation and great flexibility by allowing for
various tuning knobs to tailor it to a particular
application; (3) its inclusion of key control objectives
by means of a cost function that encompasses the
variance of the output as well as the control effort
(Mahfouf and Linkens, 1998). Consider the
following input-output linear discrete-time system:
A( z −1)∆y (t ) = B( z −1)∆u (t − 1) + C ( z −1)ζ (t ) (9)
where
−1 −1 −2 − na
A( z ) = 1 + a1z + a2 z + L + ana z (10)
B ( z −1 ) = b1 + b2 z −1 + b3 z −2 + L + bnb z − nb +1
(11)
C ( z −1 ) = c 0 + c1 z −1 + c 2 z −2 + L + c nc z − nc (12)
∆ = 1 − z −1 (13)
NU
(14)
j =1
where N1 is the minimum costing (output) horizon,
N2 is the maximum costing horizon, NU is the control
horizon, w represent the future set-point, λ(j) is the
control weighting sequence, and P(z-1) is inverse
model in the model-following context with P(1) = 1.
Usually, the polynomial C(z-1) is not estimated but
replaced by a fixed polynomial T(z-1), also known as
the observer polynomial. Its parameters are chosen so
that the whole system has better disturbance rejection
properties, and it can compensate for any unmodelled
dynamics for the predictions P(z-1)ŷ(t + j) (Clarke, et
al., 1987b). The minimization of the cost function
described in (14) leads to the following projected
control increment:
∆u (t ) = g T ( w − Λ), Λ = [Λ (t + N1), K , Λ(t + N 2 )]
(15)
where g T is the first row of the matrix
(GdTGd+λ(j))-1, and Gd is the dynamic (step-response)
matrix of the form:
⎡ g0 g1 L g ( N 2 − 1) ⎤
⎢0 g0 L g ( N 2 − 2) ⎥⎥
Gd = ⎢
T
(16)
⎢M ⎥
⎢ ⎥
⎣0 0 g ( N 2 − NU )⎦
where gi are the step-response coefficients, and Λ is a
vector of future output responses weighted by P(z-1).
Fig. 2 shows a schematic diagram representing the
structure of the adaptive GPC system. For the
purpose of the application of parameter estimation
techniques, (9) can be reformulated as:

y(t) and u(t) are the measurable output and input of B( z −1 ) T ( z −1 )

the plant respectively, and ζ(t) denotes a vector of ∆y (t + 1) = ∆u (t ) + ζ (t ) (17)
uncorrelated sequences of random variables with A( z −1 ) A( z −1 )
zero-mean and covariance σ. Any extra time-delay
can be absorbed in the structure of the B(z-1)
polynomial.
Fig. 3. Block diagram of the developed simulation platform for the generalised predictive speed control system
of the Hille-mill.
where, as stated before, T(z-1) is the observer
polynomial, and its effect in the model identification
can be clearly seen if (17) is rearranged in the form:
A( z −1)∆y (t ) B ( z −1)∆u (t − 1)
= + ζ (t )
T ( z −1) T ( z −1)
From the above expression it is clear that the input –
output data is “band-pass” filtered by the T-
polynomial, which affects only the disturbance
rejection properties of the system (Clarke, et al.,
1987b). Therefore, once the data is filtered, the one-
step model prediction is:
∆yˆ (t + 1) = −aˆ1∆y f (t ) − L − aˆ na ∆y f (t − na + 1) +
+ bˆ ∆u f (t ) + L + bˆ ∆u f (t − nb + 1)
1 nb (19)
∆yˆ (t + 1) = Φ (t ) ⋅ ϕ (t )
where the superscript f denotes a filtered signal. In
most circumstances, the standard RLS in its UD-
factorization form has been used in this work to
estimate the values of the model parameters
(Bierman, 1977).
4. SIMULATION RESULTS
A simulation model has been set up to study the
controller performance under different operating
conditions. Fig. 3 depicts the block diagram for the
simulation of the Hille-mill speed control system
using the GPC-based controller. For the mill’s model
identification, the following second-order discrete
system was used with a sampling time of 8ms:
bˆ1 z −1 + bˆ2 z −2
G ( z −1 ) =
−1 −2
1 + aˆ1 z + aˆ 2 z
The selection of the GPC tuning factors such as N1,
N2 and NU was under the following criteria: N1 is
directly related to the process time-delay, but it is
usually set 1 with no loss of generality; N2 was
chosen to exceed the degree of polynomial B(z-1), so
(18) that the value of this factor can be formulated as N2 ≈
2n-1 (n = order of A(z-1) + 1). It is known that when
NU equals 1, it usually gives good results, while
greater values lead to a more activated control signal
(Clarke, et al., 1987a). Further, λ was set to 0, and for
the polynomials T(z-1) and P(z-1), they were selected
to be of the following form: T(z-1) = (1-0.9z-1)2 and
P(z-1)=(1-0.8z-1)/0.2.
4.1. Case 1:multi-pass hot rolling.
Fig. 4 shows the performance of the control system
during a multi-pass rolling. In these series of
(20) experiments, the control signal was clipped to allow
a maximum value of 120 Nm which is the motor
rated torque. As seen in the figure, offset-free control
was achieved and both the rolling speed and the
controller’s output performed very well despite the
fact that the mill was required to work in both rolling
directions, and up to twice rated speed (60 rpm). For
all operating modes no overshoot was observed, and
steady-state was reached within 0.5 s. Additionally, a
good speed regulation was achieved when a steel
stock was introduced into the rolls producing a
maximum load torque of 2850 Nm. As shown in the
figure, the controller optimally compensates the
transient disturbance by setting the torque needed to
keep the speed constant.
4.2. Case 2: varying the mill’s parameters.
In this experiment the performance of the system was
(21) investigated under varying parameters. Fig. 5 shows
the results of the typical simulation. Initially, the
system was operating in steady-state at 30 rpm.
 Rolling speed Rolling speed
60 Rolling 60

30 Rolling 30
RPM

RPM
0 Br increased 600%
Rolling 0
-30
-30
Controller's output Controller's output
200

100 100
Nm

Nm
0 0

-100 -100 Jm increased 800%

-200
Load torque Model Parameters

2000 1 a2
Nm

0 0
a1
-2000
-1 b1 b2

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 -2
0 5 10 15
Time (s) Time (s)
Fig. 4. Performance under a multi-pass hot-rolling.
Fig. 5. Performance under varying mill’s parameters.
After 3 seconds, the roll friction was increased up to
600% its rated value. The controller identified this
new operating mode by adapting its parameters in (a) (b)
such a way that the rolling speed was kept constant.
This can be seen in Fig. 5 in which a sudden change
in the parameter estimation is observed. Finally, after
7 seconds, the motor inertia was also incremented up
to 800%. The effect of this change can only be seen
in the transient state when at 10s the speed reference
was decreased to 30 rpm. Although the plant’s rising
time is increased, no overshoot in the rolling speed
was observed.

(c)
5. REAL-TIME HOT ROLLING EXPERIMENTS

To validate the developed mathematical model and

the designed controller, a series of real-time
experiments were carried out using the mill (see Fig
6b). GPC was implemented using a high-speed
dedicated microprocessor with 384 kb flash memory
for the GPC algorithm, and 80kb for program
memory. The microprocessor also has a dual-port
RAM interface for communicating with the drive by
a high speed network connection offering up to Fig. 6. (a) Hille-mill at the University of Sheffield;
5Mbit/s data rate. Fig 6 shows a general view of the (b) Rolling experiment; (c) Control and
mill, known as “Hille-mill” and the main panel monitoring system.
screen used for control and monitoring. In order to be
consistent with the simulation experiments presented
in the last section, similar real-time experiments were Finally, a real-time hot-rolling experiment was
carried out using the same controller parameters. Fig. carried out using the aluminium AA5182 alloy with
7 shows the first test when the rolling speed was an initial thickness of 25.50 mm. The stock was
required to follow a reference both in forward and heated and prepared for rolling at 300 oC. The
backward directions, and up to twice the rated speed. experiment was designed to be a 4.5 rpm single-pass
As shown in the figure, the speed response was and 60% reduction in thickness. Fig. 9 shows the
offset-free and the dynamical response did not show control performance given by GPC. The speed
neither overshoot nor oscilations. For comparison regulation was acceptable for this test, which also
purposes, Fig. 8 shows the real-time performance for showed good disturbance rejection properties when
the same test conditions using PID control. the stock was fed into and came out of the rolls.
 Rolling speed Rolling Speed

60 60

RPM

RPM
0 0

-60 -60

GPC output PID output

100 100

0 0

%
%

-100 -100

10 15 20 25
Model parameters
Time (s)
1
a2 Fig. 8. Real-time performance using PID control.

0
Rolling speed
8
a1 b2
-1 b1 6

RPM
4
-2
2
10 15 20 25 30 35
0
Time (s)
Controller's output
Fig. 7. Real-time performance using GPC. 100

6. CONCLUDING REMARKS 50
%

The control performance shown by GPC with the

Hille-mill sets an important achievement for the
accurate control and regulation of the rolling speed.
The use of conventional PID controllers in this
particular application produces a very active control
signal and shaft chattering when working above the
rated speed. This varies the amount of strain or strain
rate applied to the stock when rolled and, as a result,
an eventual mismatch between the final product and
the original design will be produced. This work
showed that using GPC, an improved overall
performance can be achieved for a wider range of
operating conditions. It was seen that due to the fact
that the structure of the noise cannot be estimated on-
line, the T-polynomial can be used to represent a
priori knowledge about the process noise which
resulted in adequate noise rejection property with a
smoother control signal. Furthermore, the results of
real-time experiments showed a good performance of
the proposed scheme for different operating
conditions. In this regard, it is worth noting the
consistency and reliability of the developed
simulation platform which allowed one to implement
the controller without the need for further tuning.
Although this work focused on the rolling speed
control and regulation, further work is being carried
out with regard to the development of estimation
techniques to predict the optimal rolling speed and
gap position, in which mill constraints are included
in the GPC algorithm, and where the stock
microstructure-property characteristics are involved.
0
10 15 20 25
Time (s)
Fig. 9. GPC real-time performance under hot-rolling.
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