Fixed-Time Fractional-Order Sliding Mode Coordinated Control for Boiler–Turbine Systems with Disturbances and Input Constraints
- 1School of IoT Engineering, Wuxi University, Wuxi 214105, China
- 2Jiangsu Provincial University Key Laboratory of Vehicle-Road Multimodal Perception and Control, Wuxi University, Wuxi 214105, China
Abstract
In coal-fired power plants, the coordinated control of boiler–turbine systems (BTSs) is required to track grid load dispatch instructions in real time while maintaining stable main steam pressure. Nevertheless, a BTS is affected by input constraints, external disturbances and model uncertainties, making it challenging for existing control schemes to stabilize the system within a fixed time. To tackle this issue, a fixed-time fractional-order sliding mode coordinated control (FTFOSMCC) strategy is put forward for the BTS. Firstly, a novel fixed-time fractional-order sliding mode disturbance observer (FTFOSMDO) is constructed by merging Riemann–Liouville fractional calculus with the fixed-time stability theory; the proposed observer is theoretically proven to drive the disturbance estimation error to zero within a fixed settling time that does not depend on the initial observation error. Secondly, the FTFOSMCC controller incorporates the Caputo fractional-order sliding surface, a novel variable exponential power reaching law, the state-of-the-art anti-windup technique, disturbance-observer-based feedforward compensation technique and fixed-time stability theorem, guaranteeing active suppression of actuator saturation and fixed-time stability of the closed-loop control system by Lyapunov’s theorem. Thirdly, simulations on a 300 MW subcritical BTS validate the exceptional tracking accuracy, disturbance rejection capability and robustness of the proposed strategy with the reduction of 33–90% in maximum tracking error, 12–98% in cumulative error, and 11–98% in time-weighted error compared to tuned PID and integer-order disturbance-observer-based sliding mode controllers.
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BibTeX
@article{kong2026fixedtime,
title = {{Fixed-Time Fractional-Order Sliding Mode Coordinated Control for Boiler–Turbine Systems with Disturbances and Input Constraints}},
author = {Lei Kong and Tao Teng and Xuan Yang and Quan Wang},
journal = {Fractal and Fractional},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.3390/fractalfract10100712},
url = {https://www.mdpi.com/2504-3110/10/10/712},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Fixed-Time Fractional-Order Sliding Mode Coordinated Control for Boiler–Turbine Systems with Disturbances and Input Constraints
AU - Lei Kong
AU - Tao Teng
AU - Xuan Yang
AU - Quan Wang
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/09
JO - Fractal and Fractional
DO - 10.3390/fractalfract10100712
UR - https://www.mdpi.com/2504-3110/10/10/712
AB - In coal-fired power plants, the coordinated control of boiler–turbine systems (BTSs) is required to track grid load dispatch instructions in real time while maintaining stable main steam pressure. Nevertheless, a BTS is affected by input constraints, external disturbances and model uncertainties, making it challenging for existing control schemes to stabilize the system within a fixed time. To tackle this issue, a fixed-time fractional-order sliding mode coordinated control (FTFOSMCC) strategy is put forward for the BTS. Firstly, a novel fixed-time fractional-order sliding mode disturbance observer (FTFOSMDO) is constructed by merging Riemann–Liouville fractional calculus with the fixed-time stability theory; the proposed observer is theoretically proven to drive the disturbance estimation error to zero within a fixed settling time that does not depend on the initial observation error. Secondly, the FTFOSMCC controller incorporates the Caputo fractional-order sliding surface, a novel variable exponential power reaching law, the state-of-the-art anti-windup technique, disturbance-observer-based feedforward compensation technique and fixed-time stability theorem, guaranteeing active suppression of actuator saturation and fixed-time stability of the closed-loop control system by Lyapunov’s theorem. Thirdly, simulations on a 300 MW subcritical BTS validate the exceptional tracking accuracy, disturbance rejection capability and robustness of the proposed strategy with the reduction of 33–90% in maximum tracking error, 12–98% in cumulative error, and 11–98% in time-weighted error compared to tuned PID and integer-order disturbance-observer-based sliding mode controllers.
SN - 2504-3110
ER -