Development of a Fuzzy Logic Controller for Industrial Conveyor Systems

Abstract

In many industrial operations, it is essential and desirable that the speed of two or more movable members be synchronized. In this paper, the design of a fuzzy logic controller (FLC) to control the speed of a conveyor belt system of the Champion Breweries Bottling plant is presented. The need to control the conveyor speed is borne out of the necessity to synchronize the conveyor lines speed with the speed of action of all the process machines within the production network. The traditional Proportional Integral Derivative (PID) controllers have some shortcomings that may be eliminated by the use of the more robust fuzzy logic control strategy. However, an accurate mathematical model of the conveyor system was first developed before the development and deployment of the PID controller and the fuzzy logic controller. Comparing the performance indices of both controllers, it was seen that the fuzzy Logic Controller performed better on the conveyor system than the PID controller.