Decentralized control performances of an experimental web handling system regular paper

Abstract

Robust and good tracking control of the speed and the tension in web handling systems in spite of changes of set point is surely one of the important challenges in the web transport systems future development. In this paper, the authors experimentally demonstrate the real applicability of a decentralized robust control to a multi-span web transport system, which is composed of twelve guide rollers, four main sections mutually interconnected with each other. The overlapping methodology has been applied for the system decomposition. The experimental results carried out using the robust decentralized control show an excellent velocity and tension tracking in each controlled section of the system. © 2012 Giannoccaro et al.