Abstract
In this paper, a modeling and a robust time-delay control for the reclaimer are investigated. Supplying the same amount of a raw material throughout the reclamation process from the raw yard to a sinter plant is important to keep the quality of the molten steel uniform in blast furnaces. As the actual parameter values of the reclaimer are not available, the boom rotational dynamics are modeled as a second order differential equation with unknown coefficients. The unknown parameters in the nominal model are estimated using a recursive estimation method. Another important factor in the control design of the reclaimer is the large time-delay in output measurement. Assuming a multiplicative uncertainty, that accounts for both the unstructured uncertainty neglected in the modeling and the structured uncertainty contained in the parameter estimation, a robust Smith predictor is designed. A robust stability criterion for the multiplicative uncertainty is also derived. Following the work of Goodwin et al. [4], a quantifying procedure of the multiplicative uncertainty bound, through experiments , is described. Experimental and simulation results are provided.