How to use PID for flow control in different system settings?

I am trying to automate a pump performance laboratory.

In the pump performance test, for different flow points, the pressure of the discharge should be recorded and then the Head-flow curve of the pump can be obtained.

So for each flow point, we should use a PID to control the pneumatic control valve and reach the desired flow point.

of course, it is possible to tune the PID for one specific set point or set of points for one specific pump.

But Since different pumps with different characteristics should be tested on the Lab the setting of the test will be changed and (as an example the test pump will be changed) and the pre-tuned PID will be useless for the new set of flow points.

which strategy should be implemented to completely automate the performance of the test (it means no PID tuning to be necessary even by changing the test-pumps)

Hello,

I would use the CONT_C.
The advantage is that you don't need a pretuning of the PID.

Define a UDT with all ID-parameters like

• P, I, D for switch as BOOL
• P as Real,
• I and D as a time
• etc.

Then use this UDT in a Array and you can store different constellations for each pump.

Switch the PID-paramter with a INT and a pointer into the array, e.g.

• PID-paramter with array-number [0] connect directly to the ID-controller
• select your pump-type with a INT
• copy the PID-paramter form the array[NT] to array[0]

regards
CaOd

CaOd

Hello,

I would use the CONT_C.
The advantage is that you don't need a pretuning of the PID.

Define a UDT with all ID-parameters like

• P, I, D for switch as BOOL
• P as Real,
• I and D as a time
• etc.

Then use this UDT in a Array and you can store different constellations for each pump.

Switch the PID-paramter with a INT and a pointer into the array, e.g.

• PID-paramter with array-number [0] connect directly to the ID-controller
• select your pump-type with a INT
• copy the PID-paramter form the array[NT] to array[0]

regards
CaOd

 Thank u very much for the answer. But in order to do what you have suggested we should tune the PID parameter for each pump once and store the PID parameters and then based on the type of the pump as you said (like a look up table) choose the correct PID parameters.

But what I need is some kind of self-tune PID, imagine all the pumps are not available for us so we can not build that PID parameter table. I need some kind of adaptive PID parameters but I do not know how to implement it.