A control system for automatic operation of a coker includes a drum feeder operable to modulate a feed of oil into a coke drum of the coker and a controller. The controller is configured to obtain an objective function that defines a control objective as a function of one or more controlled variables affected by modulating the feed of oil into the coke drum and use a predictive model and the objective function to generate a target coker feed rate indicating a target rate at which to feed the oil into the coke drum. The predictive model is configured to predict values of the one or more controlled variables predicted to result from the target coker feed rate. The controller is configured to operate the drum feeder using the target coker feed rate to modulate the feed of oil into the coke drum.