Grey Wolf Optimizer Based PID/Multi-Loop Controller for the Egg Incubator System

Abstract

This work presents a state-space model that can be used in the design of an egg incubator, where the objective is to control the temperature and the humidity for successful incubation. In order to get the maximum number of viable chicken eggs and healthy chicks, it is essential to use two essential parameters: temperature and humidity. The temperature plays a very important role in the hatching rate and the health of the chickens. Humidity is a necessary factor to facilitate hatching and digging, and it also affects the weight of the chick generally determining the success of incubation. The slightest difference in temperature and humidity in the incubation system can cause the failure of this operation. This work describes the Grey Wolf Optimization (GWO) algorithm as one of the new meta-heuristic algorithms adopted with the Multi-loop PID controller to control the temperature and humidity in an egg incubator. The use of the GWO algorithm is to find the best optimal parameters of the controller "Kp, Ki, Kd" using Integrated Time Absolute Error (ITAE). The simulation results show the performance of the proposed GWO optimization method compared to the control by the ant colony algorithm ACO.