IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CONTROL SYSTEMS TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 13, NO.

6, NOVEMBER 2005

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A Multi-InputSingle-Output Smith Predictor

for Feeders Control in SAG Grinding Plants
Daniel Sbarbaro, Johnatan Barriga, Hector Valenzuela, and Guillermo Cortes

AbstractThe accurate control of feeders in semiautogenous

grinding(SAG) mills plays an important role for obtaining good
operational results. This brief presents the design of a Smith
predictor for multi-inputsingle-output (MISO) systems, representing a set of feeders in a SAG plant. The design considers the
special characteristics of the application, as well as issues like
performance and robustness of the proposed controller. Experiments carried out at an industrial plant, under several operational
conditions, demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed strategy
compared to the one based on a single proportionalintegral
derivative (PID) controller.
Index TermsMining industry, process control, proportional
integral derivative (PID) control, Smith predictor.

I. INTRODUCTION

UTOGENOUS (AG) and semiautogenous (SAG) Mills

are widely used for size reduction in the mineral processing industry. The AG Mill is a tumbling mill, which utilizes
the ore itself as a grinding media. For some ores, an AG mill
combines the size reduction steps of crushing, coarse grinding
and fine grinding. The SAG Mill is an AG mill that uses steel
balls in addition to the natural grinding media. The addition
of balls (typically 6%12% percent by volume of 100-mm
diameter or 125-mm diameter balls) increases the ability of an
AG mill to deal with ores of varying hardness characteristics
and varying amounts of natural grinding media. A SAG mill
can effectively treat a wide variety of feed materials.
Nonferrous operations (mostly copper and gold) found that
SAG milling is much more flexible than AG milling, and therefore, many companies are incorporating an increase number of
SAG mills into their operations.
Size reduction is the most expensive operation in most concentrators, accounting for 60%70% of the total concentrator
operating costs. Selection of the optimum size reduction method
is essential to the financial success of a mine. Because of this,
most new mining projects have selected SAG mill of increasing
size, which today can exceed the 40-ft diameter, with ring motors driven by up to 26 000 HP variable speed drives.

Manuscript received February 12, 2004; revised August 13, 2004. Manuscript received in final form April 25, 2005. Recommended by Associate Editor
S. Palanki.
D. Sbarbaro is with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Universidad
de Concepcin, 4089100 Concepcin, Chile (e-mail: dsbarbar@die.udec.cl).
J. Barriga was with Department of Electrical Engineering, Universidad de
Concepcin, 4089100 Concepcin, Chile. He is now with IM2, 8580659 Santiago, Chile (e-mail: JBarr013@im2.codelco.cl).
H. Valenzuela and G. Cortes are with Codelco-Norte, 1399100 Calama, Chile
(e-mail: hvalenzu@codelco.cl; gcortes@codelco.cl).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TCST.2005.854344

Through December 2000, at least 1075 commercial

AG/SAG Mills type mills were sold. The total power exceeds 2 700 000 kW [1]. This is an amazing 17% increase in
installed power in five years. Since December 2000 and up
today most large nonferrous mining projects have incorporated
SAG mill in their concentrators.
SAG mills have proven to optimize their throughput for a
given ore size distribution in their feed. Feed size distribution
variations not only affect the performance of the grinding circuit, but also the result in product variations that may adversely
affect the downstream recovery process [2]. These variations
may lead to significant losses in revenue over the operating life
of the grinding circuit. To compensate for ore size changes, in
some plants the ore is classified and stored in different stockpiles according to its size, i.e., fine, medium, and coarse. The
operator then selects the amount from each stockpile to reach a
desired ore size distribution that results in a throughput increase.
In other plants, where the ore size classification is not possible,
the operator uses the natural segregation of the ore inside the
stockpile. Due to the segregation in the stock pile, some feeders
receive more coarse ore and other feeders receive more fine ore,
the operator then manipulates the right combination of feeders
and feeders speed to try to reach the best size distribution for the
ore to be fed into the mill.
From a control point of view, this system can be represented
as a mult-inputsingle-output (MISO) system, where the output
is the total tonnage and the inputs are the feeders settings. The
normal operating strategy with three feeders configuration, is to
set two feeders in manual operation and with the third regulate
the total amount of ore, the disadvantage of this simple strategy
is that the percentages of each material varies.
In addition, there are significant delays associated to the measurement of the total tonnage to be processed, since conveying
belts transport the material from the stockpiles to the SAG mill
and normally the sensing device is situated near the mill and
far away from the feeders. This characteristic prevents the use
of high controller gains leading to sluggish system response in
terms of tracking variable set-points. For single variable processes, Smith predictors are traditionally used to compensate the
effect of time delays [3]. This controller has been extended to
deal with multivariable systems with single delay [4] and with
multiple delays [5], [6]. In the full multivariable case, as in the
single-inputsingle-output (SISO) case, if the model is perfect,
the Smith predictor eliminates all time delays from the system
characteristic equation. However, unlike the SISO version, the
actual performance can not be guaranteed, since the presence
of different delays associated to the system generates a messy
output response [7]. In order to cope with this effect, several
versions of multivariable Smith predictors have been proposed

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Fig. 2. Simplified diagram.

Fig. 1. Block diagram of a MISO Smith predictor.

[5][7]. Nevertheless, the design of the main controller, unlike

the SISO case, is based on a transfer function matrix with time
delays, which complicate the design. For MISO systems, however, the design can be simplified, as is illustrated in this work.
This work proposes the use of a Smith predictor for controlling the amount of ore and at the same time, maintaining the
right percentages of ore coarseness.
The brief is organized as follows. In Section II, we describe
the structure of the proposed Smith predictor for a class of
MISO systems, representing the feeder system of a SAG mill.
Section III describes a SAG grinding plant and some implementation issues. Section IV illustrates by an example the
integrated methodology to design the controller for a specific
SAG grinding plant. Real-time experiments are considered
in Section V, to illustrate the proposed methodology and the
flexibility of the controller.

is the transfer function of a filter,

is the conwhere
troller associated to the input th and represents the contribution of input th to the total output signal. The values of these
constants are in many applications set by the operators, considering the coarseness of the transported material. They must satisfy as well the following conditions:

(2.4)
This structure can be simplified by defining the transfer func:
tion
(2.5)

II. SMITH PREDICTORS FOR A CLASS OF MISO SYSTEMS

A general MISO system can be described by the following
equation:

Thus, the general block diagram is reduced to Fig. 2. The

nominal closed-loop response is
(2.6)

(2.1)
where

is the number of inputs. Each transfer function model

can be factorized as
(2.2)

is the factor containing all the time delays and nonminimum phase dynamics. The control objective is to design a controller, so that the output of the system can be driven to a reference value, in spite of the disturbances, by manipulating each
control signal to satisfy the proportions given by the constants
. Fig. 1 illustrates the structure of the system.
Each control signal is calculated as

(2.3)

and
are stable, then the
if all the transfer functions
nominal closed-loop transfer function will be stable.
The closed-loop system, considering the mismatch between
and plant
is given by
the model

(2.7)

where the model error is defined as

(2.8)
Notice that (2.7) can be reduced to (2.6) only if the model error
is zero.

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Fig. 3. Conveyor belts CT-09 feeding a SAG mill.

The small gain theorem [8] guarantees stability of the closedloop system if

where is the sampling time. In order to consider the fact that

in a normal operating condition any controller can be switched
to manual, the following condition:
(2.9)
must be satisfied in order to maintain the stability of the closedloop system. The inequality (2.9) can also be expressed as
(2.10)
Hence,
and
must be chosen to guarantee this
condition in spite of modeling errors. The fact that
can
be independently tuned for each input gives an extra degree of
freedom for meeting the stability constraint. Since a rational
, (2.10) holds for
z-transform is periodic in with
all , if
[8].
III. FEEDERS CONTROL IN SAG GRINDING CIRCUITS
The SAG grinding plant of the A-2 Codelco-Norte concentrator has two SAG lines, where each one consists of a SAG
, and two ball mills of
in closed
mill of
inverse circuit configuration with hydrocyclones. The plant rethrough three
ceives product of a crushing plant with
feeders, as shown in Fig. 3.

Feeders are normally commanded by advanced control strategies, which control the total fresh feed tonnage, mill water addition and mill speed while monitoring bearing pressure (an indirect measure of the weight of the mill) and mill power. The
main objective of these supervisory strategies is to maintain a
stable operation and maximize the fresh feed tonnage.
The distributed control system is a TDC-3000 with a Local
Control Network. The control algorithms run on a VAX 3100
connected to a Ethernet network. There is a plant network interface (PLNN) that allows the communication between the equipments connected to the Ethernet network and those connected to
the Local Control Network (LCN). At present the control system
of the SAG plant is being replaced by a modern hybrid platform,
based on Rockwell Automation technology and the application
considered here will be migrated to this platform.
A. Description of the Feeder System
The mineral is transported from the stock piles to the SAG
mill by a set of conveyor belts as shown in Fig. 1.
A weight meter measures tonnage on the belt at the end of it.
Continuous random variations in the size, density and flow of
ore into the feeder will always cause variations in the tonnage
measured at the weight meter. The feeder system has three
feeders, three variables speed conveyor belts and a constant
speed conveyor belt. In addition, there are cameras monitoring
the ore in each feeder. A controller regulates the speed of each
feeder that pulls ore from a stockpile up to the constant speed
conveyor belt. The amount of mineral is determined by the
speed of each feeder. The operator, in manual mode, can change

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TABLE I
DISTANCE BETWEEN THE FEEDER AND THE WT

TABLE II
PARAMETERS OF THE MODELS

For each model a simple upper bound of the uncertainty was

estimated by using the difference between the response of the
model and the actual data. The following expression is the z
transform of the difference between the step response of the
system and the model [10]
(4.2)
Letting
the following upper bound in the frequency
domain is obtained
(4.3)

Fig. 4. Normalized step responses and model outputs for feeder 1, 2, and 3.

(4.4)
this amount by considering the coarseness of the mineral in
each feeder, generated by a natural segregation of the ore inside
the stock pile. The constant speed belt takes the ore up to the
SAG mill at a speed of 1.59 (m/s). A sensor based on load cells
in (ton/s) measures the total weight.
The distance between feeders, measured from the discharge
of each variable speed belt and the sensor point, is summarized
in Table I.
IV. MODELING THE SYSTEM AND TUNING THE CONTROLLER
A. Modeling the System
The feeder can be modeled as a simple first-order plus delay
transfer function
(4.1)
Step changes were carried out in the three feeders in order
to gather information about the transfer functions. The sampling time was 5 s. An ARX model was fitted to the plant
inputoutput data. The delays in the model were identified
from the step responses by correlation analysis [9]. The paramand
were estimated by performing a least square
eters
regression. Fig. 4 shows the step responses of the feeders and
the identified models. Table II summarizes the values of the
estimated parameters.
represents the difference between the step
The variable
is the sum of its
response of the system and the model, and
absolute value.

if

then
(4.5)

. Hence, at
The error is weighted with one over
steady state the error between the model and the plant must be
zero. Therefore, the model and the process must have the same
steady-state gain. Since the tonnage signal is quite noisy the
were calculated considering a 10% variation of the
values of
time constant and delay obtained by least square identification.
More complex estimates of the upper bound for
can be obtained by considering the variance of the estimated
parameters [11], [12] and general step responses [13].
B. Control Structure
The objective is to control the total tonnage by manipulating
the speed of the conveyor belts in a proportion determined by
the operator, according to the coarseness characteristic of the
ore in each feeder. Under this scheme the operator must set the
constants .
has a PI structure
Each controller
(4.6)
and they are designed considering the nominal plants
which can be factorized as
with:

(4.7)
(4.8)

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TABLE III
PARAMETERS FOR THE PI CONTROLLERS

the equivalent compensator, i.e., (2.5), is

(4.9)
Selecting the parameters as
(4.10)
then the equivalent compensator is

1 (e )k and kF (e )Q (e )k

Fig. 5. Frequency response for k

for each feeder.

(4.11)
and the nominal closed loop will be
(4.12)
is a tuning parameter representing the deThe parameter
sired closed-loop dynamics.
The final tuning for the controllers, given by (4.10), is summarized in Table III.
The filter has two objectives: to reduce the noise produced
by the irregular size distribution of the ore, and to provide a certain degree of robustness, according to (2.9). If it is necessary,
could also be detuned to satisfy the robustness coneach
straint (2.10).
The filter has the following simple structure:
(4.13)
Considering the inequality (2.9) and the expression for and
the stability of the closed loop is maintained if the following
inequality holds:

Fig. 6. Closed-loop step responses.

considering remote set-point changes, provided by an advanced

control strategy, are used to compare the tracking performance
between a PID-based strategy and the proposed MISO Smith
predictor.
A. Closed-Loop Experiments Using Local Step Set-Point
Changes

(4.14)
0.7 is enough for satisfying the
Selecting a time constant
inequality (4.14) and providing a wide margin of stability, as can
is
be seen in Fig. 5, where the uncertainty bound for
displayed together with
for each feeder.
V. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
In order to illustrate the performance of the proposed
strategy, two types of experiments are presented. First, simple
closed-loop experiments, using local step set-point changes,
highlight the use of the weighting factors. Second, experiments

The controller was tuned by using the parameters found in

Section IV-A. In order to illustrate the main characteristics of
the proposed controller in terms of how the total tonnage is
distributed among the feeders, a set of experiments with two
feeders were carried out. Step changes in the set-point value of
the total tonnage were applied; Fig. 6 shows the behavior of the
controller. During the experiment the weights associated to each
feeder were changed, as seen in Fig. 7. This is illustrated more
clearly in Fig. 8, where the percentage of tonnage assigned to
feeder 1, and represented by , is shown together with the calculated percentage of total tonnage supplied by the same feeder.
is
. Note that a
In these experiments, the value of

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Fig. 9.
Fig. 7.

PID Controller. Total tonnage ( ), set-point (

000).

Speed of feeders 1 (- - - ) and 2 ( ).

Fig. 10.
Fig. 8. Percentage of tonnage supplied by feeder 1.
percentage ( ).

MISO Smith predictor. Total tonnage ( ), set-point (

000).

(- - - ), calculated

change in the weights does not produce a major upset in the

tonnage response, Fig. 6.
B. Tracking Performance of a PID Based Strategy and a MISO
Smith Predictor Controller
In the following experiments, the set-point is provided by an
advanced control strategy controlling the SAG grinding circuit,
which tries to maximize the throughput, while keeping a stable
operation by monitoring pressure bearing and mill power. These
objectives are accomplished by manipulating the mill water addition and mill speed.
The strategy used to control the feeders before the implementation of proposed controller considered two feeders in open
loop and a single PID controller, acting over the third feeder
to control the total tonnage. This controller was tuned following
the IMC tuning guideline [8]. With this strategy, it was not possible to maintain the right proportion among the feeders. In addition, the PID controller has to be detuned in order to cope with
the long time delay. Fig. 9 shows the response of this strategy
to track this time varying tonnage set-point; with this performance the advanced control strategy was not able to operate
for long periods of time. On the other hand, the proposed controller, which considers a MISO Smith predictor and PI controllers acting on each feeder, as described in Section II, provides a better tracking of the time-varying set-point, as seen in
Fig. 10. In addition, the system is flexible since the operators
can set the right proportions associated to each feeder and they
can also take any feeder out of operation, without affecting the

stability of the system. A year of closed-loop operation has validated the operation of the controller enabling the advanced control strategy to operate all this time.
VI. CONCLUSION
The use of multiple Smith predictors has enabled the efficient control of the tonnage, as well as, the right proportion on
the material being feed to the SAG mill. These characteristics
have made the system indispensable for a stable and long-time
operation of advanced control strategies aimed to optimize the
process. The tuning of the controller considers a small amount
of parameters clearly related to the desired performance and robustness of the algorithm. From the experimental tests can be
seen that under the proposed strategy the total tonnage is not
very sensitive to changes in the percentage assigned to each
feeder. Furthermore the tracking performance has been dramatically improved compared to the strategy previously used in
plant. The system has demonstrated, during its one year operation, its flexibly and reliability.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank the reviewers for their helpful
comments to improve the presentation of this work.
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CONTROL SYSTEMS TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 13, NO. 6, NOVEMBER 2005

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