Rahul Malhotra et al IJCSET | July 2011 | Vol 1, Issue 6,315-319

Boiler Flow Control Using PID and Fuzzy

Logic Controller
Rahul Malhotra1, Rajinder Sodhi2
1, 2
Department of Electronics & Communication Engineering
1
Bhai Maha Singh College of Engineering, Muktsar (PB)
1
Adesh Institute of Engineering & Technology, Faridkot (PB)

Abstract: Conventional Proportional Integral Controllers are non linear systems and is used for modeling complex systems
used in many industrial applications due to their simplicity and where an inexact model exists or systems where ambiguity or
robustness. The parameters of the various industrial processes vagueness is common. The fuzzy control systems are rule-
are subjected to change due to change in the environment. based systems in which a set of fuzzy rules represent a
These parameters may be categorized as steam, pressure,
temperature of the industrial machinery in use. Various process
control decision mechanism to adjust the effects of certain
control techniques are being developed to control these system stimuli. With an effective rule base, the fuzzy control
variables. In this paper, the steam flow parameters of a boiler systems can replace a skilled human operator. The rule base
are controlled using conventional PID controller and then reflects the human expert knowledge, expressed as linguistic
optimized using fuzzy logic controller. The comparative results variables, while the membership functions represent expert
show the better results when fuzzy logic controller is used. interpretation of those variables.
Maximum overshoot for fuzzy logic controller is measured as
9.35% as compared with 47.3% given by conventional PID II PROPORTIONAL-INTEGRAL-DERIVATIVE
controller. Settling time for fuzzy logic controller and PID CONTROLLER
controller is measured at 7.18 seconds and 10.14 seconds
respectively, which shows the superiority of fuzzy logic
A proportional–integral–derivative controller (PID
controller. controller) is a generic control loop feedback mechanism
(controller) widely used in industrial control systems – a PID
Keywords: boiler, fuzzy logic controller, PID controller. is the most commonly used feedback controller. A PID
controller calculates an "error" value as the difference
I INTRODUCTION between a measured process variable and a desired set point.
The Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) controllers have The controller attempts to minimize the error by adjusting the
been the most commonly used controller in process industries process control inputs. In the absence of knowledge of the
for over 50 years even though significant development have underlying process, PID controllers are the best controllers.
been made in advanced control theory. According to a survey However, for best performance, the PID parameters used in
conducted by Japan Electric Measuring Instrument the calculation must be tuned according to the nature of the
Manufacturers Association in 1989, 90 % of the control loops system – while the design is generic, the parameters depend
in industries are of the PID type. The proportional action on the specific system. The PID controller calculation
adjusts controller output according to the size of the error, the (algorithm) involves three separate parameters, and is
integral action eliminates the steady state offset and the accordingly sometimes called three-term control: the
future is anticipated via derivative action. These useful proportional, the integral and derivative values, denoted P, I,
functions are sufficient for a large number of process and D. The proportional value determines the reaction to the
applications and the transparency of the features lead to wide current error, the integral value determines the reaction based
acceptance by the users. Strength of the PID controller is that on the sum of recent errors, and the derivative value
it also deals with important practical issues such as actuator determines the reaction based on the rate at which the error
saturation and integrator windup. PID controllers perform has been changing. The weighted sum of these three actions
well for a wide class of processes and they give robust is used to adjust the process via a control element such as the
performance for a wide range of operating conditions and are position of a control valve or the power supply of a heating
easy to implement using analog or digital hardware. element. Heuristically, these values can be interpreted in
Moreover, due to process uncertainties, a more sophisticated terms of time: P depends on the present error, I on the
control scheme is not necessarily more efficient than a well accumulation of past errors, and D is a prediction of future
tuned PID controller. errors, based on current rate of change. By tuning the three
The concept of intelligent control lies with the fact that constants in the PID controller algorithm, the controller can
human intelligence is imbibed in to the controller architecture provide control action designed for specific process
so that human behavior can be emulated in the control requirements. The response of the controller can be described
decision. Human expert knowledge is based upon heuristic in terms of the responsiveness of the controller to an error,
information gained in relation to the operation of the plant or the degree to which the controller overshoots the set point
process, and its inherent vagueness ("fuzziness") offers a and the degree of system oscillation. Note that the use of the
powerful tool for the modeling of complex systems. The PID algorithm for control does not guarantee optimal control
fuzzy logic controller provides an algorithm, which converts of the system or system stability. Some applications may
the expert knowledge into an automatic control strategy. require using only one or two modes to provide the
Fuzzy logic is capable of handling approximate information appropriate system control. This is achieved by setting the
in a systematic way and therefore it is suited for controlling gain of undesired control outputs to zero. A PID controller

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will be called a PI, PD, P or I controller in the absence of the

respective control actions. PI controllers are fairly common,
since derivative action is sensitive to measurement noise,
whereas the absence of an integral value may prevent the
system from reaching its target value due to the control
action.

III FUZZY LOGIC BASED CONTROLLER

Fuzzy controllers are very simple conceptually. They consist
of an input stage, a processing stage, and an output stage. The
input stage maps sensor or other inputs, such as switches,
thumbwheels, and so on, to the appropriate membership
functions and truth values. The processing stage invokes each Figure 2: Frequency domain analysis of the system
appropriate rule and generates a result for each, then
combines the results of the rules. Finally, the output stage
converts the combined result back into a specific control VI. PID CONTROLLER DESIGN AND TUNING
output value. The most common shape of membership A feedback control system measures the output variable and
functions is triangular, although trapezoidal and bell curves sends the control signal to the controller. The controller
are also used, but the shape is generally less important than compares the value of the output signal with a reference
the number of curves and their placement. As discussed value and gives the control signal to the final control element
earlier, the processing stage is based on a collection of logic via the actuator.
rules in the form of IF-THEN statements, where the IF part is The characteristic equation obtained as below
called the "antecedent" and the THEN part is called the
"consequent". Typical fuzzy control systems have dozens of
s 3  6 s 2  5s  K cu  0 (1)
rules. Consider a rule for a thermostat: IF (temperature is Applying Routh criteria in eq (1) we get Kcu = 30
"cold") THEN (heater is "high"). From auxiliary equation in routh criteria we get ω = 2.03 and
T = 2.69
IV PROBLEM FORMULATION The equation of ideal PID controller is
A boiler of a chemical plant is taken as a case study and the  1
t
de(t ) 
temperature control of the boiler is achieved using u (t )  K c  e(t )   e(t )dt   d 
conventional PID controller and intelligent fuzzy logic based  i 0 dt 
controller. The comparison of both the controller
 1 
performance is analyzed in this chapter. u ( s)  K c 1    d s  e( s )
Set point  is 
Set point of temperature = 380 degree Celsius.
 1   i s   i d s 2 
u ( s)  K c   e( s )
 is 
V. MATHEMATICAL MODELING & CONTROLLER
DESIGN The real PID controller is
The basic conventional feedback controller is shown in figure  1   i s  1   d s 
1. In conventional PID controller the controller and the u ( s)  K c    e( s )
process are in series where as a feedback from the output is   i s  1   d s 
given to the input. The boiler of chemical plant is The PID controller is traditionally suitable for second and
mathematically modeled using experimental data available lower order systems. It can also be used for higher order
and the transfer function of the above system is achieved as plants with dominant second order behaviour. The Ziegler-
Nichols (Z-N) methods rely on open-loop step response or
closed-loop frequency response tests. A PID controller is
tuned according to a table based on the process response test.
According to Zeigler-Nichols frequency response tuning
criteria
PID Process K p  0.6 K cu ,  i  0.5T and  d  0.125T
r(s)
c(s) For the PID controller in the heat exchanger, the values of
tuning parameters obtained are Kp=32, τi=1.5, τd=0.29 and
P= 30, I= 21.2, D=9
Figure 1: Block diagram of classical control architecture Usually, initial design values of PID controller obtained by
all means needs to be adjusted repeatedly through computer
simulations until the closed loop system performs or
The stability analysis of the system is done and the bode plot compromises as desired. This stimulates the development of
of the system is plotted which is shown in figure 3. The gain “intelligent” tools that can assist the engineers to achieve the
margin is 20 db where as the phase margin is 56.2°. best overall PID control for entire operating envelops.

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VII. BOILER CONTROL USING FUZZY LOGIC Table 2: IF-THEN rule base for fuzzy logic control
CONTROLLER
PID controller is a standard control structure for classical
control theory. But the performance is greatly distorted and
the efficiency is reduced due to nonlinearity in the process
plant. The fuzzy PID controllers are the natural extension of
their conventional version, which preserve their linear
structure of PID controller. The fuzzy PID controllers are
designed using fuzzy logic control principle in order to
obtain a new controller that possesses analytical formulas
very similar to digital PID controllers. Fuzzy PID controllers
have variable control gains in their linear structure. These
variable gains are nonlinear function of the errors and
changing rates of error signals. The main contribution of
these variable gains in improving the control performance is
that they are self- tuned gains and can adapt to rapid changes
of the errors and rate of change of error caused by time delay
effects, nonlinearities and uncertainties of the underlying Figure 4: Mamdani fuzzy inference system developed for
process. fuzzy controller

Figure 3: Architecture of fuzzy control

Figure 5: Triangular and trapezoidal input membership
function for input (error)
In this paper we have considered different linguistic variables
and details of these variables are shown in table 1.

Table 1: Linguistic variable of fuzzy logic control

Figure 6: Triangular and trapezoidal input membership

function for input (cherror)

Designing a good fuzzy rule base is the key to obtain

satisfactory control performance for a particular operation.
Classical analysis and control strategy are incorporated in the
rule base. The rule base used in simulation is summarized in Figure 7: Triangular and trapezoidal input membership
Table II. Each rule has the form IF e(t) is NB AND ∆e(t) is function for output (contr)
NB THEN u(t) is NB. The control literature has worked
towards reducing the size of the rule base and optimizing the
rule base using different optimization techniques like GA,
PSO for intelligent controller. At last defuzzified output is
obtained from the fuzzy inputs. In this research work centroid
method of de fuzzification is used. It is given as below.

u* 
  (u ) * u d u
c

  (u ) d u
c

Figure 8: Rule viewer for fuzzy inference system

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Figure 9: Surface view of FIS

Figure 13: Graph for error signal

VIII. SIMULINK REPRESENTATION OF BOILER

CONTROL USING FUZZY LOGIC CONTROLLER

Simulink is a software package for modeling, simulating, and

analyzing dynamical systems. It supports linear and nonlinear
systems, modeled in continuous time, sampled time, or a
hybrid of the two. Boiler control using simulink is modeled
as given below:

Figure 10: Simulink representation of feedback control

Figure 14: Simulink representation of system with fuzzy

Figure 11: Step response of process with feedback PID
logic controller
controller

Figure 12: Step response of the system with input and output Figure 15: Step response of system with fuzzy logic
controller

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