Intelligent control of a nonlinear tank reactor

Abstract

In this paper, intelligent control of a particular Catalytic Continuous Stirred Tank Reactor (CSTR) is addressed. Control command is the sum of two components: steady state and transient commands. A fuzzy controller generates a transient control command that pushes the system towards the setpoint. A steady state control command is generated to maintain the steady state situation at the setpoint (based on the concept of ‘control equilibrium point’). For comparison, a case study was also controlled by the neuro-predictive algorithm. The studied CSTR is known as a good example of a neuro-predictive control application; however, the newly proposed hybrid intelligent method leads to much better setpoint tracking as well as less change in control command (which is very important in implementation of the control system).