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Current control methods for chain conveyor systems in manufacturing consist almost exclusively of proportional, integral and differential (PID) control implemented using programmable logic controllers (PLC ). The necessity of reducing manufacturing costs requires that the throughput of the conveyor system is increased. As the maximum accelerations allowable are strictly limited, this requires that the control accuracy is improved. This paper investigates the possibility of improving the position control of the conveyor system by replacing the PID controller with a model-based controller. Two types of model-based controller are presented and tested experimentally. By constructing a suitable performance index, the performance of the various controllers is then compared with that achieved using PID control.

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