Self-Organizing Fuzzy Controller for Gas-Assisted Injection Molding Combination Systems

Abstract

This study designed and constructed a gas-assisted injection molding system and incorporated it into a traditional injection molding machine. This combined system was referred to as the “gas-assisted injection molding combination system” (GAIMCS). The GAIMCS has complicated and uncertain dynamics, so it is impractical to design model-based controllers for this kind of system. To address this problem, this work developed a model-free self-organizing fuzzy controller (SOFC) to control the GAIMCS and evaluated its control performance. The SOFC has learning ability, which can regulate fuzzy control rules in real time during the control process. The initial fuzzy control rules for the SOFC can be set to zero before the onset of learning. The SOFC achieved better control performance than the fuzzy logic controller or the proportional-integral-derivative controller for high-pressure gas control in the GAIMCS, as confirmed by the experimental results.