15th Triennial World Congress of the International Federation of Automatic Control
  Barcelona, 21–26 July 2002 
ROBUST CONTROL OF GREENHOUSE CLIMATE EXPLOITING MEASURABLE DISTURBANCES
J.C. Moreno*, M. Berenguel*, F. Rodríguez*, A Baños
* Universidad de Almería. Dpto. Lenguajes y Computación. Ctra. Sacramento s/n, La
Cañada, E04120, Almería, Spain. E-mail: {jcmoreno,beren,frrodrig}@ual.es
Universidad de Murcia. Facultad de Informática. Dpto. de Informática y Sistemas.
Campus Universitario de Espinardo, E30071, Murcia, Spain. E-mail: abanos@dif.um.es

This paper presents the development and implementation of robust control techniques based on the quantitative feedback theory (QFT) aimed at achieving adequate values of inside greenhouse temperature in spite of uncertainties and disturbances acting on the system. A modification of classical design approaches has been included to incorporate feedforward action (exploiting the availability of measurements of disturbances, which in the particular case of greenhouses are the main energy source) and an antiwindup action to account for frequent saturations in the control signal. Results obtained with this scheme using a validated nonlinear simulator of greenhouse dynamics are also included.
Keywords: Robust control, feedforward compensation, agriculture, control nonlinearities, bilinear systems

E-mail: beren@ual.es
Session slot T-Th-E15: Application of Robust Control III/Area code 2e : Robust Control