ROBUST STEADY-STATE TARGET CALCULATION FOR MODEL PREDICTIVE CONTROL

A method and apparatus for steady-state target calculation that explicitly accounts for model uncertainty is disclosed. In accordance with one aspect of the invention, when model uncertainty is incorporated, the linear program associated with the steady-state target calculation can be recast as a highly structured nonlinear program. In accordance with another aspect of the invention, primal-dual interior point methods can be applied to take advantage of the resulting special structure. For a system having characteristic gain parameters G having a known uncertainty description, the present invention provides a method and apparatus for selecting steady-state targets for said system-manipulated variables such that all system-controlled variables will remain feasible at steady-state for all possible values of the parameters G within the known uncertainty description. A nominal estimate {tilde over (G)} of the system parameters G is made, and in accordance with another aspect of the invention, the steady-state targets are selected such that when {tilde over (G)}=G, the system is driven to an operational steady-state in which the objective function is extremized.