The results to date of a collaborative research project with BHP Steel in Port Kembla, Australia, are described. The project is concerned with control of strip tension and looper angle in BHP's hot strip steel rolling mill (the finishing mill). The new controllers have been successfully implemented on the process and now handle all the production at the mill. The paper describes a model of the process, similar to that reported in the work of others. The development of a full nonlinear controller is traced, based on a recursive nonlinear method (cf., backstepping). Insights are drawn into possible system structures, particularly in the output feedback case when tension measurements may not be available. Alternative controller schemes are examined, including a speculative design which contains filters, similar to those obtained from output feedback designs of linear systems, together with nonlinear operators which invite comparisons with variable structure designs. Simulation results, which provided the justification for the final implementation, together with results from actual production records are presented.
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