Development of a Fuzzy Logic Controller for a Distillation Column Using Rockwell Software

by Muhammad Shoaib Nizami

A Thesis presented to The University of Guelph

In partial fulfilment of requirements for the degree of Master of Applied Science in Engineering

Guelph, Ontario, Canada Muhammad Shoaib Nizami, September, 2011

ABSTRACT

Development of a Fuzzy Logic Controller for a Distillation Column using Rockwell Software

Muhammad Shoaib Nizami University of Guelph, 2011

Advisor: Professor Simon X. Yang

In this thesis, an alternative control method based on Fuzzy Inference System (FIS) is proposed to keep the product composition of a distillation column constant. This study compares a proposed FIS with traditional PID (proportional, integral, derivative) control technique and analyzes the results. The FIS is applied to the control of the tray temperature of the distillation column by using indirect feed split control structure to modulate the steam ow with management of the tray temperature. In turn, this modulation maintains the composition of product at specied levels. Rockwell fuzzy designer is used to develop the fuzzy logic controller. Both a fuzzy logic controller and a PID controller are downloaded in the Rockwell ControlLogix L62 process controller. Chemstations Chemcad simulation software is used to run the distillation column simulations. Simulation results are programmed into L62 process controller to behave as a dynamic distillation column. Results show that the proposed fuzzy logic controller is more tolerant to disturbances in the feed ow and feed composition of the distillation column than the PID controller.

Dedication
To my grandfather, Haz Nizamuddin, and to my parents, Siddique Ahmed Nizami and Ashraf Jahan Aara, whose encouragement was great source of inspiration for me to my wife, Andleeb, for her patience and steadfastness support and to my kids Tooba, Taha, and Tabish in whom glittering eyes I can see my own unfullled dreams

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Acknowledgements
First of all thanks to my advisor, Professor Simon Yang, who supported me in every step of my studies at the University of Guelph and whose valuable suggestions during the completion of this thesis were unparalleled. I will remember him in my heart throughout out my life along with the University itself who gave me the chance to complete my dream of doing masters in control systems engineering. A well deserve thanks to my advisory committee member, Professor Gordon Hayward, for his out of the way cooperation in completing this thesis. Completion of this thesis was almost impossible without the support of my manager, Sean Murray, at Zeton Incorporated. He facilitated me in every manner and did let me to utilize every resource available at Zeton from control system equipment to all kind of control and simulation software. I am also thankful to my colleagues, Leisl Dukhedin-Lalla, Majid Kazi, and Asif Raza, at Zeton who helped me run chemical engineering simulations and gave me very valuable insight into the distillation column process and operation. I will certainly mention Jim Thomson who nally came up with the solution of my idea. At the end I must thank Rockwell Automation and their local representative at Burlington, Gerrie Electric, for providing me the Fuzzy Designer software free of cost.

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Contents
List of Figures List of Tables List of Symbols and Abbreviations 1 Introduction 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Problem Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Objective of This Thesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Contribution of This Thesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Organization of This Thesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . viii xiii xiv 1 2 2 3 3 5 5 8 15 15 20 31 31 40 41 42

2 Background and Literature Survey 2.1 2.2 2.3 Distillation Column . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Traditional Approaches to the Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . New Approaches to the Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3.1 2.3.2 Basic Components of a Fuzzy System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fuzzy Control Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

3 The Proposed Method 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 The Fuzzy Inference System Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Controller Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Controller Hardware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Experiment Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

3.5

Distillation Column under Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.5.1 3.5.2 3.5.3 3.5.4 3.5.5 3.5.6 Salient Features of the Distillation Column . . . . . . . . . . . Feed Stage Base Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Control Stage Base Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Feed Stream Base Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Distillate Stream Base Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bottoms Stream Base Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

44 45 46 47 47 47 47 51 52 53 54 55 63 71 89 91 91 92 93 98

4 Results and Discussion 4.1 4.2 4.3 Function Block Diagram Arrangement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chart Arrangement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tuning of Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3.1 4.3.2 4.4 4.5 Tuning of Fuzzy Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tuning of PID Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Experiments and Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary of Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

5 Conclusion and Future Work 5.1 5.2 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Future Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

References A Appendix: Distillation Column Temperature Proles A.1 Distillation Column Temperature Prole at 950 pph ow and 26 percent of Methanol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A.2 Distillation Column Temperature Prole at 1000 pph ow and 30 per-

98

cent of Methanol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 A.3 Distillation Column Temperature Prole at 1050 pph ow and 33 percent of Methanol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 A.4 Distillation Column Temperature Prole at 1100 pph ow and 36 percent of Methanol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 vi

A.5 Distillation Column Temperature Prole at 900 pph ow and 26 percent of Methanol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 A.6 Distillation Column Temperature Prole at 1000 pph ow and 26 percent of Methanol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 A.7 Distillation Column Temperature Prole at 950 pph ow and 31 percent of Methanol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 A.8 Distillation Column Temperature Prole at 950 pph ow and 36 percent of Methanol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 B Appendix: Distillation Column Tray50 Temperature Proles B.1 Tray50 Temperature Prole versus Reboiler Duty at various ow and composition of feed and Methanol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 B.2 Tray50 Temperature Prole versus Reboiler Duty at 900 pph ow and 26 percent composition of feed and Methanol respectively . . . . . . . 129 B.3 Tray50 Temperature Prole versus Reboiler Duty at 1000 pph ow and 26 percent composition of feed and Methanol respectively . . . . . . . 132 B.4 Tray50 Temperature Prole versus Reboiler Duty at 950 pph ow and 31 percent composition of feed and Methanol respectively . . . . . . . 135 B.5 Tray50 Temperature Prole versus Reboiler Duty at 950 pph ow and 36 percent composition of feed and Methanol respectively . . . . . . . 138 C Appendix: FLC and PID Controllers Code 141 122

C.1 FLC and PID Controllers Code, exported from RSLogix5000 in L5X/XM L format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

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List of Figures
2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 2.9 A typical distillation column with controllers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Error calculation in reverse acting mode. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Error calculation in direct acting mode. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Process variable (PV) tightly following setpoint (SP). . . . . . . . . . Process variable (PV) overshooting due to high gain and reset value. Basic formulation of PID controller. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Standard membership function shapes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Trapezoidal and Triangular membership functions. . . . . . . . . . . . Defuzzication methods (a) Centre of Gravity; (b) Maxima . . . . . . 6 10 10 12 14 14 17 17 19 23 26 30 32 33 33

2.10 Structure of a conventional fuzzy inference system. . . . . . . . . . . 2.11 A supervised learning fuzzy controller. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.12 A self-learning layer added to a xed rule base fuzzy controller. . . . 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 General overview of the experiment concept. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . General overview of the proposed fuzzy system. . . . . . . . . . . . . Equivalent fuzzy system in Rockwell software (FuzzyDesigner). . . . . Error variable Input Membership functions in Rockwell software (FuzzyDesigner). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.5 Delta error variable Input Membership functions in Rockwell software (FuzzyDesigner). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.6 Non-Linear variable Input Membership functions in Rockwell software (FuzzyDesigner). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

35

36

36

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3.7

Non-Linear Low variable Input Membership functions in Rockwell software (FuzzyDesigner). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 38 40 44 45 46 51

3.8 3.9

Rule base in Rockwell software (FuzzyDesigner). . . . . . . . . . . . . Output Membership functions in Rockwell software (FuzzyDesigner).

3.10 The diagram of experiment setup. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.11 Proposed distillation column and control structure. . . . . . . . . . . 3.12 Equivalent Distillation column in Chemcad simulation environment. . 4.1 4.2 Physical setup. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Function block arrangement for the experiment in Rockwell RSLogix5000 software. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 Chart arrangement for the experiment in Rockwell RSLogix5000 software. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 Fuzzy Designer on-line tuning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fuzzy Designer on-line tuning, Membership functions. . . . . . . . . . Fuzzy Designer on-line tuning, Rule base. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Response of FLC controller after loading initial tuning parameters. . Response of FLC controller after reducing TempError to 50 and ErrorDelta to 5 tuning parameters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.9 Response of FLC controller after reducing ErrorDelta to 0.01 while keeping TempError at 50. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.10 Response of FLC controller after reverting ErrorDelta back to 5 while reducing TempError to 10. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.11 Response of FLC controller after reducing TempError further to 5 while keeping ErrorDelta back at 5. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.12 Response of FLC controller after keeping TempError at 5 while reducing ErrorDelta to 0.5. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.13 Response of FLC controller after reducing TempError to 1 while reverting ErrorDelta back to 5. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

53

54 55 56 56 57

58

59

59

60

60

61

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4.14 Response of FLC controller after reverting TempError back to its best value of 5, ErrorDelta back at its best value of 5, and reducing Rule 3 weight from initial weight of 1 to 0.1. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.15 Response of FLC controller at the best and nal values, TempError at 5, ErrorDelta at 5, and Rule 3 weight at 0.3. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.16 Auto-Tuning results in Rockwell RSLogix5000 software. . . . . . . . . 4.17 Response of PID controller after loading auto-tune parameters in Rockwell RSLogix5000 software. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.18 PID controller in oscillation when P was increased to 1600 while keeping other parameters at auto-tune values. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.19 PID controller in oscillation when P was decreased to 800 while keeping other parameters at auto-tune values. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.20 PID controller with P set to 400 while keeping other parameters at auto-tune values. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.21 PID controller with P set to 400 and I set to 12800 while keeping D parameter at auto-tune value. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.22 PID controller with P set to 400 and I set to 6400 while keeping D parameter at auto-tune value. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.23 PID controller with P and D set to 400 and 6400 respectively and D set to16. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.24 PID controller with P and D set to 400 and 6400 respectively and D reduced from 16 to 8. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.25 PID controller with P set to 400, I set to 6400, and D set to 8. . . . . 4.26 Eect of ow change from 950 to 900 lb/hr at constant composition . 4.27 Eect of ow change from 900 to 950 lb/hr at constant composition . 4.28 Eect of ow change from 950 to 1000 lb/hr at constant composition 4.29 Eect of ow change from 1000 to 950 lb/hr at constant composition 4.30 Eect of composition change from 26 to 31 percent of MeOH at constant ow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 70 70 71 72 73 73 69 68 68 67 67 66 65 63 64 62

4.31 Eect of composition change from 31 to 26 percent of MeOH at constant ow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.32 Eect of composition change from 26 to 36 percent of MeOH at constant ow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.33 Eect of composition change from 36 to 26 percent of MeOH at constant ow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.34 Eect of ow change from 950 to 1100 lb/hr and composition change from 26 percent methanol to 36 percent methanol. . . . . . . . . . . . 4.35 Eect of ow change from 1100 to 950 lb/hr and composition change from 36 percent methanol to 26 percent methanol. . . . . . . . . . . . 4.36 Eect of ow change from 950 to 1050 lb/hr and composition change from 26 percent methanol to 33 percent methanol. . . . . . . . . . . . 4.37 Eect of ow change from 1050 to 950 lb/hr and composition change from 33 percent methanol to 26 percent methanol. . . . . . . . . . . . 4.38 Eect of ow change from 950 to 1000 lb/hr and composition change from 26 percent methanol to 30 percent methanol. . . . . . . . . . . . 4.39 Figure 4.38 with dierent zoom on a dierent day to check whether FLC fell into saturation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.40 Eect of ow change from 1000 to 950 lb/hr and composition change from 33 percent methanol to 26 percent methanol. . . . . . . . . . . . 4.41 Figure 4.40 with dierent zoom on a dierent day to check whether FLC fell into saturation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.42 Eect of setpoint change from 101.0 to 104.0 degree at the base conditions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.43 Eect of setpoint change from 101.0 to 97.8 degree and vice versa at 36 percent methanol composition and 1100 pph ow. . . . . . . . . . 4.44 Eect of setpoint change from 101.0 to 98.5 degree and vice versa at 33 percent methanol composition and 1050 pph ow. . . . . . . . . . 4.45 Eect of setpoint change from 101.0 to 102.8 to 99.8 degree and back to 101.0 at 30 percent methanol composition and 1000 pph ow. . . . xi 86 85 84 83 82 82 81 81 79 79 78 77 76 76 75

4.46 Eect of randomly selected setpoint change and disturbances. . . . .

87

4.47 Eect of falling into extremely non-linear region of temperature prole. 88 4.48 Temperature prole of Distillation column under study at 950 l/hr of ow and 26 percent of methanol. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.49 Temperature prole of Tray 50 of Distillation column under study at 950 l/hr of ow and 26 percent of methanol. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 90

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List of Tables
2.1 3.1 RuleBaseExample . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rockwell RuleBase Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 39

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List of Symbols and Abbreviations

Symbols in This Thesis
ai lb/hr CO Weight of rule i Engineering unit for ow measurement pounds per hour Controller Output also called manipulated variable is the output of the process controller D Derivative is the rate of change of error between SP and P V of the P ID controller e I Error between the values of SP and P V of the process controller Integral also called reset denes the integral of the error between SP and P V of the P ID controller M eOH N OP Chemical formula of Methanol Number of rules Output also called manipulated variable is the output of the process controller P Proportional band also symbolized as P B denes the proportional gain of the P ID controller PV Process variable also called controlled variable is the output of the plant SP Set point also called referenced point in a typical process controller is the threshold point at which plant process has to be maintained Y Output of the FIS system

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Abbreviations in This Thesis

AI AN F IS AN N DC DDC DF QL F ACL F BD F IS F LC F QL GA GLC M M Btu/hr Articial Intelligence Adaptive Neuro Fuzzy Inference System Articial Neural Network Distillation Column Direct Digital Control Dynamical Fuzzy Q-Learning Fuzzy Actor-Critic Learning Function Block Diagram Fuzzy Inference System Fuzzy Logic Controller Fuzzy Q-Learning Genetic Algorithm Globally Linearizing Control Engineering unit for heat measurement M illion British thermal unit per hour MP NN OLE OM P OP C P ID Matching Pursuit Neural Network Object Linking and Embedding Orthogonal Matching Pursuit Object Linking and Embedding for Process Control P roportional Integral Derivative algorithm is the most popular type of control technique in control engineering P LC P M BE P MC pph P SIG Programmable Logic Controller Process Model Based Engineering Model Predictive Control pounds per hour, equivalent to lb/hr Engineering unit for pressure measurement P ounds per Square Inch (Gauge)

xv

RL SF C SL SLF C

Reinforcement Learning Sequence Function Chart Supervised Learning Self Learning Fuzzy Logic Control

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Chapter 1 Introduction
Petroleum rening and extraction is one of the complex processes of raw materials. Normally it is divided into two stages; upstream and downstream. In the upstream stage oil is drilled and/or mined to extract it out of the subsurface and in the downstream stage it is rened to usable levels in the form of dierent products namely benzene, gasoline, kerosene, and tar. Dierent products are separated by using the phenomenon of dierent boiling temperatures of dierent components of the crude oil feed, and this process is called distillation. This process becomes challenging due to the presence of dynamic variables such as feed ow, temperature, pressure, level, and composition. The focus of this research thesis is a binary distillation column; a binary distillation column is where two products are separated from the feed. Typically the lighter product is collected from the top and heavier product is collected from the bottom of the column. Traditionally one or two control loops are constructed to control the composition of the top and bottom product. In two loop architecture, the top loop monitors the composition of the distilled product and controls the reux into the column, while bottom loop monitors the composition of the bottom product and controls the heating of the bottom section of the distillation column. In one loop architecture only one loop controls the heating or the reux into the distillation column to maintain the composition of both top and bottom product. The controller of this single loop architecture is the topic of this thesis. 1

1.1

Problem Statement

Controlling the composition of the product of the distillation column is one of the challenges engineers face during the operation of the distillation of the raw feed into the renery. The steady-state operation of the column is disturbed by the sudden change in the feed ow, composition of the feed, feed pressure, and ambient temperature. PID (proportional, integral, derivative) controllers are used to control the dierent variables of the process. Distillation column is a highly complex and non-linear process where variables do not follow each other linearly and that is why this type of control often requires a lot of tuning when variables change at dierent rates then at which the controller was originally tuned. The control parameters are usually selected by trial and error method, which is dicult to systematically incorporate human expert knowledge. In many situations, one xed set of PID control parameters may not be suitable for some cases that require a range of control rules.

1.2

Objective of This Thesis

The objective of this research is to highlight the applicability of fuzzy control to a non-linear process from an industrial view point. The proposed fuzzy controller will directly address the problems encountered in distillation operation and can also be used in other applications where more than one variable aect the operation of the process and the nature of the control is non-linear such as boiler level control, waste water pumps speed, and food processing. The procedure developed for collecting distillation column data and programming this data into RSLogix 5000 software can also be used in pilot and commercial production plants for testing and developing new fuzzy controllers and comparing their performance with existing operational PID controllers.

1.3

Contribution of This Thesis

There are three novel techniques being used in this thesis, Industrial software, Rockwell Fuzzy Designer is used to develop the fuzzy controller By using the sensitivity analysis simulation results of the CHEMCAD distillation column software, a real-time distillation column function is generated in the Allen Bradley RSLogix5000 control software Both Fuzzy Controller and distillation column function are running in Rockwell ControlLogix L62 PLC By applying the fuzzy control it is proved that fuzzy logic controller can be a better alternative to the PID controller for the control of distillation column control loops by utilizing the human experience and inherent fuzzy characteristics of the fuzzy logic. In a normal setup at the petroleum plant operators are the ones who operate the distillation column and control engineers are the ones who tune the control loops. By employing the fuzzy technique, the experience of operators can be incorporated in the conguration of fuzzy controllers that will result in a more stable and ecient control loops. In this thesis the experience of the people who have worked in the renery is utilized to prove that human experience in controlling the plant can be an asset while developing control loops.

1.4

Organization of This Thesis

This thesis is divided into chapters, sections and subsections. Chapter 1 includes the introduction where problem statement, objective and contribution of this thesis are briey described. Chapter 2 is a literature survey and background of the topic of this thesis. Some very basic information of the operation of distillation column is given along with the brief history of development of control techniques for the distillation column. 3

A detailed discussion is provided for traditional approach and its weaknesses. An introduction to the basic functioning of FLC is provided along with the dierent learning techniques of FIS. A detailed literature survey of the fuzzy control approach in the last four decades is presented at the end of the chapter. A discussion is also provided between the dierences found in the design of academic versus industrial fuzzy controllers in todays world. Chapter 3 presents the basic idea behind the methodology of the experiment. It gives details about the components of the system which includes fuzzy logic controller, PID controller, selection of controller software, selection of control hardware, and selection of control structure of the distillation column. This chapter also introduces the reader to the hypothetical distillation column used for this experiment along with the its base conditions. The reader is also introduced to the CHEMCAD software used in this experiment for the simulation of distillation column sensitivity analysis. In Chapter 4, results are presented, analyzed, and summarized. Arrangement for the theorem in terms of function blocks and arrangement for the results in charts are presented. Comparative analysis between the two type of controllers, FLC and PID, is given for each type of experiment. Figures are provided to depict not only the experiment results but also to show the basic setup of the experiment, and nonlinear behaviour of the temperature prole of the distillation column. Chapter 5 concludes the research and suggests possible future work. Based on the results presented in chapter 4, it is explained why FLC performed better than PID controller in controlling the distillation column. Suggestions for future work are based not only on the results of this thesis but also on the contemporary control practises and trends in the industrial control world.

Chapter 2 Background and Literature Survey

This chapter is about the background information underlying the project, starting with the introduction of the distillation column, distillation column control structure problem and traditional approach to the problem. It reviews new approaches, and provides survey of current literature. Details of the functioning of a traditional PID control and of new FLC controls are discussed. How control and PID technique have been developed and applied to distillation column is explained and the survey of the new approaches investigates how deciencies of PID control are addressed in the new approach.

2.1

Distillation Column

Distillation Columns are used in the chemical and petroleum industry to separate the multiple liquids by using their physical and chemical properties. They are one of the most common plant units along with the utilities in the petrochemical industry. Feed enters from one side of the column while exact height of the location of the inlet stream into the column vary by application. By heating the feed, one liquid boils earlier than the other due to its lower boiling point and transforms into vapours. This vapour liquid is referred to as light product and is collected from top of the distillation column and is condensed to convert it back to liquid distillate, before storing or feeding it into other downstream units for further process. The 5

Figure 2.1: A typical distillation column with controllers. other component of the feed, which remains in the liquid state, is heavier component and is collected from the bottom of the distillation column and is termed as bottoms. The control of distillation column becomes dicult because of the following reasons: Presence of number of interacting variables Extreme process interactions Process non-linearity and dead times Dicult to measure process variables Due to all the above reasons and other industrial plants challenging situations, the control strategies of distillation column have been a topic of choice for researchers both in the academic and industrial world for a long time. The most important issue in Distillation Column (DC) control is to keep the product quality at constant parameters. Traditionally, PID control techniques have 6

been employed to control these parameters. Since the DC is quite complex, highly nonlinear, multivariable process it has remained a challenge for engineers to control and for operators to operate. This is the reason that alternative control techniques have been tried to overcome this complex control. Adaptive control, model predictive control, and fuzzy control are the few techniques that stand out among hundreds of others like Globally Linearizing Control (GLC) by Trotta and Barolo (1995), Process Model-Based Engineering (PMBE) by Cott et al. (1989) based on original Generic Model Control, NN model-based controller by Monsanto (1997), and multiple control techniques by Vester et al. (1993). A ne example of an adaptive control technique is the experiment done by Barolo et al. (1994), although approach was limited to only one distillation loop the author believes that the second loop for bottoms control could be implemented in the same way though further research is needed. Barolo method was based on GLC, Globally Linearizing Control. The controller model was developed by grouping a number of component dynamic balance equations into one dynamic equation. The developed controller need not to be tuned separately for start-up and steady state operation of the distillation column unlike a legacy PI controller that needs a separate tuning parameters for varying operating scenarios. It is often questioned why to use fuzzy control while well established PID control can handle most of the situations in the operating range of the processes. PID control can be further enhanced by the use of adaptive techniques. The answer is that each type of control has its strengths and weaknesses and now fuzzy control is nding its applications in multivariable control problems like dairy, trac control, and process control. Fuzzy logic is one of the strongest contenders of alternate solutions for non-linear controls among other new approaches because of its ease of use and its exploitation of human experience. Still some prefer to use fuzzy control to only tune the parameters of traditional PID controller (Karray and Desilva, 2004). In the operation of DC, the operators role at the front line of the operation is very important. To use this knowledge as a way to automate the control of DC fuzzy logic has been proposed 7

as fuzzy logic inherently has the ability to convert this human knowledge into rule based control. The other great advantage of fuzzy logic control is that it does not need an analytic model of the process for the development of fuzzy controller, so their conception is greatly simplied (Margaglio et al., 1997). An other aspect that has been noted in the control applications is that fuzzy control has the edge over PID control in the recovery of the process from OFF position. Fuzzy systems have less overshoot than their counterpart PID controllers and that is why fuzzy overshoot suppression phenomenon is being implemented by leading control software developers. Most of the earlier fuzzy models were based on the trial and error methods, as humans do most of the time. A system is developed by the knowledge of human experts and applied to the particular system. If the results are not according to the expectations then further tuning is done and the model is reapplied. The procedure goes on until perfection is attained and thus sometimes require a lot of resources. To overcome this diculty an on line tuning of the system has been developed by using dierent learning methods, namely Supervised and Reinforcement Learning. As fuzzy control is part of the bigger family of Articial Intelligence (AI) so it can tremendously increase its eciency by easily incorporating the advancements in this growing eld of AI. At the same time, cognitive sciences are making use of fuzzy logic in a number of ways such as pattern recognition and data modelling (Wang and Lai, 2000).

2.2

Traditional Approaches to the Problem

Since James Watt used a mechanical governor to control the speed of his improved steam engine in 1788, control engineering has been part and parcel of the industrial world. During this time, dierent mechanical control techniques were used to control the machinery and this was true when the oil industry developed in the late 18th century. Mechanical pneumatic instrumentation evolved for the control of the process in the early 20th century and became mature in 1950s and 1960s. The PID 8

controller was the most popular method of employing closed loop control although adaptive control found applications in niche markets like in the aerospace industry. As electronic equipment became more and more available, the electronic controllers started to replace the pneumatic controllers, although pneumatic controllers are still used in the petrochemical industry in particular cases. The evolution goes on with the growth of digital computing and advent of new intelligent control theories like fuzzy and neural networks. Scientists and engineers started looking into these new theories for better solution to their problems. This section describes in detail how PID control works, its basic components, and why it become so popular. Reverse Action vs Direct Action in PID controller PID control evolved from the need of controlling the process without human intervention. The basic objective is to keep the actual condition of the process as close to the desired condition as possible without unsettling the whole system. So the simple method of subtracting the actual condition of the process, process variable P V , from the desired process condition, set point SP , used to nd the error e. e = SP P V (2.1)

The above approach is also termed as reverse acting. A variant of the above approach is direct acting which is as follows; e = P V SP (2.2)

Reverse acting implies that controller output will move in opposite direction to that of the process variable to maintain the process variable at the referenced point where as direct acting implies that controller output will move in the same direction to that of process variable to maintain the process variable at the referenced point. Reverse acting is the generic form of control and for sake of simplicity this form of control is used for further discussion in this chapter. 9

Figure 2.2: Error calculation in reverse acting mode.

Figure 2.3: Error calculation in direct acting mode.

10

Closed Loop versus Open Loop in PID controller Before going further, dierence between open loop control and close loop control has to be dened clearly. In open loop control the controller does not have feed back from the process and it is not aware of the consequences of its action and hence cannot control precisely. It is like driving a car with closed eyes. Whereas in close loop control the controller gets the instantaneous feedback from the process and hence modulates its output accordingly. In this study only the close loop control is discussed further. This type of feedback in the close loop control is also called negative feedback because controller counteract basis on this feedback. Basic Components of PID Control As the name implies, the PID controller is made up of following three components; 1. Proportional Band 2. Integral 3. Derivative 1. Proportional band function in PID controller As seen from Eq. (2.1), the controller generates a proportional control output, called CO. An important point to emphasize is that proportionate change in CO depends on the proportionate change in the error. The earlier controllers were only proportional controllers or P controllers. They worked ne and kept the process close to their set point. However, there was one issue that they introduce oset after sometime or when there was disturbance in the process. First component of PID controller is in the following form; CO = eP (2.3)

where CO is the controller output, e is the error and P is the proportional factor. 11

Figure 2.4: Process variable (PV) tightly following setpoint (SP). 2. Integral (Reset) function in PID controller In the real world of process control there is a parameter which is disliked by all, control engineers, chemical engineers etc. It is called disturbance. Disturbance is anything which causes the normal setup of control out of its set parameters. For the sake of simplicity it can be supposed that a sudden drop of ambient temperature is the disturbance in a heater control loop. The oset created by the disturbances used to be reset by the operators by themselves by manually increasing the output of the controllers. To make this manual reset automatic, integral phenomenon was introduced into the Eq. (2.3) which results in the following equation; CO = P e + I edt (2.4)

where CO is the controller output, e is the error, P is the proportional factor, and I is the integral. Integral of a control loop will work in parallel with proportional gain and will keep adding up the error signal and hence boost the controller output until error e becomes 0. Thus deciency in the P only controller can be accommodated by the integral I factor. A vast majority of the PID controllers used in the petrochemical 12

industry today are of PI type. 3. Derivative (Rate) function in PID controller There are numerous processes in the industry which are too slow to change and hence dicult to control eciently with PI controllers; temperature is one of them. Because of their slowness in change they (slow process) introduce large amounts of time lag between the controller action and the response generated by the process that the PI controller cannot handle it eciently and in turn controller action becomes sluggish. To overcome this sluggishness controller P and I parameters are increased which give a fast response but ultimately introduce the overshoot problem. Overshooting is the phenomenon in which controller action causes the P V to go beyond the desired value. This is the scenario where the third term of the PID controller, derivative D, comes into action. Derivative is nothing but a rate of change of error e. Derivative will continuously check the rate of change of error e and based on this rate will determine how much negative gain it should introduce into the controller output CO to prevent it causing the P V to overshoot the SP . Now the Eq. (2.4) becomes; CO = P e + I edt + Dde/dt (2.5)

where CO is the controller output, e is the error, P is the proportional factor, I is the integral, and D is the derivative. There are a lot of variations of the above PID controllers such as interactive and non-interactive algorithms and then each controller manufacturer has its own unique algorithm but the basic idea behind all of these is the same as have been presented above. Along with PID control there are other control techniques which found applications in the industry. All of these techniques can be broadly categorized as classical and modern. Classical control technique deals with single input single output systems and the PID technique is one of them. On the other hand, modern control technique can deal with the multivariable systems and model predictive control (MPC), adaptive control, and robust control are some of the examples. Other advanced control 13

Figure 2.5: Process variable (PV) overshooting due to high gain and reset value.

Figure 2.6: Basic formulation of PID controller.

14

techniques like cascade control, split control, and feed forward control can be used with both types of categories.

2.3

New Approaches to the Problem

With the advent of the micro computer chip, soft computing has gained a lot of attention. As this technique relies heavily on computing power it got greater acceptance with the availability of cheap and powerful computing chips. Collectively soft computing is a part of Articial Intelligence which includes fuzzy logic, neural networks, genetic algorithm, and Bayesian control. There is further combination of these techniques like neuro-fuzzy control, fuzzy-genetic control, to name a few. Among all of these intelligent control methods fuzzy control has better acceptance in the petrochemical industry and commercial control applications can be spotted which are discussed later. In this section, basic components of FLC structure are described and literature survey of fuzzy control in the petrochemical industry and around its application to distillation column control is presented.

2.3.1

Basic Components of a Fuzzy System

Fuzzy Control System is based on the Fuzzy Set Theory and Fuzzy Logic presented by Lot Zadeh in 1965 and 1973 respectively (Zadeh, 1965), (Zadeh, 1973). Zadeh is considered to be the father of fuzzy logic and wrote every aspect of this new theory up to now (Bellman and Zadeh, 1970), (Zadeh, 1975), (Zadeh et al., 1975), (Gaines et al., 1984), (Zadeh, 1978), (Zadeh, 1979), (Zimmermann et al., 1984), and (Zadeh, 1999). FIS (Fuzzy Inference System) system is generally consists of following 5 components: 1. Input variables 2. Method of fuzzication through membership functions for input variables 3. Rule-base (if-then rules)

15

4. Method of defuzzication through membership functions for output variables 5. Output variables Input Variables An input variable to the FIS is the variable to be controlled. This variable has to be kept at a certain value called set point or reference signal to keep the system stable and free of oscillation. In most of the FIS systems, single input variable is used but it can be increased to any number. The rule of thumb is that increasing the number of input variables increases the complexity of the system. In most of the process control applications of fuzzy control two input variables namely error and rate of change of error are used (Mamdani and Assilian, 1975). Fuzzication Membership functions describe how the input variable is fuzzied. Popular membership functions are; triangular, trapezoidal, Gaussian, Bell-shaped, Z-type, S-type, and pi. Triangular membership functions are the most commonly used membership functions. Membership functions for a variable can be of any number and they can be dierent to each other. Shape and number of the output membership functions could be dierent than those of input membership functions. Generally there are three ways to decide the shape and number of input and output membership functions: Experts knowledge Simulation and experiments From examples Some of the standard membership functions shapes are given in Figure 2.7 (Altrock, 1995) and Figure 2.8.

16

Figure 2.7: Standard membership function shapes. (Redrawn from Altrock (1995))

Figure 2.8: Trapezoidal and Triangular membership functions.

17

Rule-base Fuzzy if-then rules are the heart of FIS. These rules relate the antecedent part of the FIS to the consequent part of the FIS, input variables and membership functions are called antecedent part of FIS and output variables and output membership functions are called consequent part of FIS. The eciency of the system largely depends on how these rules are developed and how many are developed. In the FIS systems where learning agents are used, rules can be generated, modied and or deleted. Generally there are three ways to develop these rules: Experts knowledge Simulation and experiments From examples A simple rule base is shown in Table 2.1

Table 2.1: RuleBaseExample No Rule 1 IF Error is negative AND DeltaError is negative THEN Output is positive 2 IF Error is negative AND DeltaError is positive THEN Output is zero 3 IF Error is positive AND DeltaError is negative THEN Output is zero 4 IF Error is positive AND DeltaError is positive THEN Output is negative 1.00 1.00 1.00 Weight 1.00

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Defuzzication The aggregate of the output membership functions is a fuzzy set and to use it in the real world it should be de-fuzzied with a single number. The most popular method of defuzzication is centroid, in which the centre of the area under the aggregate curve is calculated. Some other methods which are also used are smallest of maximum, largest of maximum. Popular defuzzication methods are shown in Figure 2.9 (Wang, 1997).

Figure 2.9: Defuzzication methods, (a) Centre of Gravity; (b) Maxima. (Redrawn from Wang (1997))

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Mamdani versus Sugeno Type FLC The two most commonly used FIS types, Mamdani and Sugeno, dier in defuzzifying output variable. The two methods are same except for the evaluation of output value of the output variable. The Mamdani method uses the fuzzy output membership functions, whereas Sugeno type (Sugeno and Takagi, 1985) uses a single spike as the output membership function. In many cases Sugeno is more ecient and the output membership function is called a singleton output membership function. Sugeno method can be thought of as pre-defuzzied fuzzy set. Mamdani type is the most commonly used and is largely depends on human experience where as Sugeno is easy to use where computation is involved as in ANFIS (Adaptive Neuro Fuzzy Inference System). Although Mamdani method has more acceptance and is intuitive but Sugeno is more suitable for the processes where control is closed to linear techniques like PID control (Sivanandam et al., 2007).

2.3.2

Fuzzy Control Systems

The use of fuzzy logic as a tool for the development of control systems was rst projected in development of a fuzzy control system for a laboratory-scale steam engine boiler (Mamdani and Assilian, 1975). Although the system was successful and many commercial and industrial applications still use the same principles of fuzzy logic control (FLC) developed by Mamdani, the control system had no online learning technique associated with it. To tune the parameters of the controller or change the rule base, one has to take the controller oine, change the parameters, and then observe the results. This process goes on and on until the perfect, or near-perfect, controller is formed. Mamdani used pressure and speed as the input variables and heat and throttle as the output variables of the Fuzzy logic controller, and compared its results with the xed Digital controller. The FLC performed better than the Direct Digital Controller (DDC) (Mamdani and Assilian, 1975). From this point, fuzzy logic control started to appear in the literature as an alternate method of control in a number of dierent disciplines.

20

Application of Fuzzy technique to petrochemical processes, especially the control of a distillation column, grew slowly throughout the 1980s and 1990s, on the other hand the application of fuzzy controls in the manufacturing, electronics, and robotics was quickly accepted. The highly complex nature of petrochemical plants and the high cost of investment associated with the stable operation of a control system, have forced the petrochemical industry to wait for the fuzzy technology to mature before applying it to process control systems. Although practical FLC system have been in industrial use since 1980 (Mukaidono, 2001), a great dierence can be found between the industrial and academic fuzzy systems. There are three main reasons behind this attitude, rstly the dierence of level of skill and knowledge of fuzzy systems is far greater in academic circle than that of industrial end users, secondly industrial control system manufacturers are still waiting for fuzzy technologies to become bit easier to implement on the shop oor, and thirdly government rules and regulations prohibit industry to use some of the technologies, like pharmaceutical industry. During the literature survey, it is found that almost all of the fuzzy systems proposed by the academics had learning algorithms which tuned the rule base or even tuned the membership functions parameters too. These fuzzy systems were mostly developed in the very controlled atmosphere of university labs. But when looking into the industrial level fuzzy softwares it was found out that no one has this type of elaborate learning algorithm in their software suite. The fuzzy system software used for this research didnt have any learning algorithm. However one of the industrial software products for fuzzy control, DeltaV from Emerson Process Management, has an online tuning of the system which adjusts scaling of the membership functions but not more than that. However it must be noted that even if learning is not taking place in the computing machine it is still going on human brain which modies the rules and shape of the membership functions as per his/her observations. It means learning is an important part of fuzzy controller development though it may not part of fuzzy controller algorithm. As explained in the above paragraph there are reasons behind this attitude. In the process control world, systems are huge but not as complex 21

and integrated as could be found in aerospace, machine control, or robotics so it means that there are less variables involved and need for modifying the rule base and membership functions does not exist. In the same way, code issues and regulations do not allow some industrial plants like those of food processing and pharmaceutical to change and test control parameters randomly. The other major dierence found during the survey was the type of membership function. In academic world dozens of membership function types, shapes, are being explored and suggested but in the industrial world one or maximum of two were available for the development of the system. DeltaV oers none to select from and uses only T riangular type membership functions. Rockwell oers the option of choosing between S type and T rapezoids only. The explanation could be principle of incompatibility (Zadeh, 1973) As the complexity of a system increases, human ability to make precise and relevant (meaningful) statements about its behaviour diminishes until a threshold is reached beyond which the precision and the relevance become mutually exclusive characteristics. It is then that fuzzy statements are the only bearers of meaning. At the end it can be safely said that both sectors are doing what they are supposed to do. The research articles can be categorized broadly into the following three categories: 1. Fuzzy systems without online learning 2. Fuzzy Systems with Supervised Learning (SL) 3. Fuzzy Systems with Reinforcement Learning (RL) 1. Fuzzy Systems without Online Learning As obvious from their category name, fuzzy systems falling in this category do not have any kind of learning system means once they are developed and applied they will use their xed rule base that is stored into them. While on the other hand fuzzy systems, which use some kind of learning method can constantly develop new rules 22

Figure 2.10: Structure of a conventional fuzzy inference system. and can also delete some obsolete ones as a way to update the rules as required by the changing environment. Fuzzy systems without learning are simpler and easier to develop and are more popular in the process industry. They nd applications where variables are not changing much and parameters are relatively constant but they have the drawback that tuning them for a changed environment takes a lot of time and eort. Klett (1993) formulated this kind of model in 1993. His proposed model was very successful to a small-scale laboratory type experimental batch distillation application where there is not any problem of continues feed ow. Another article by Fileti et al. (2002) also presented the application of fuzzy control to a batch distillation process and although they have reported a success but at the same time they have admitted that some of the conditions of the column were considered as constant. Glankwamdee et al. (1999) presented the idea of fuzzy control as supervisory control to the legacy PID controller and they had success up to a certain limit but as they rightly admit that rule changing is a time consuming process. Aliev and Mamedova (1990) discussed and presented the following theorems to construct a fuzzy model as follows: DEFINITION: Let Ri = n i=1 Xi Yi . If for each Xi , (2.6)

Yi = Xi R, 23

then the compositional rule of inference is executed strictly; otherwise it is done approximately. Below, theorems about the strict execution of the compositional rule of inference are formulated, dening the conditions of minimizing the adequacy criterion. THEOREM 1: Let R be a regular fuzzy relation matrix: R = X Y (n = 1) If fuzzy sets X and Y are normal, then the Eq.(2.6) is executed strictly. THEOREM 2: Let non-regular fuzzy relation matrix R = n i=1 Ri be given. Here Ri = Xi Yi are regular relation matrices. If fuzzy sets Xi and Yi (i = 1, ...., n) are normal and satisfy the conditions n i=1 Xi = then the Eq.(2.6) is executed strictly. It implies that the Eq.(2.6) is fully applied when fuzzy input and output membership function values are normal, meaning their values are 1, and if individual value is not normal but the whole set value is normal and the set is not empty then Eq.(2.6) is also fully applied otherwise it applies approximately. Neves-Jr et al. (1997) presented the idea of Orthogonal Matching Pursuit (OMP) for constructing fuzzy models. OMP is an extension of matching Pursuit (MP), which works on a greedy mechanism for nding the optimal solution from a directory of possible solutions. Here greedy implies that algorithm aggressively search for the best solution. In the OMP algorithm, a model is developed for the dependence of an additionally selected vector on the previously selected vector. Using this dependency model, the model is extended such that the new residual error is orthogonal to all the previously selected error (Neves-Jr et al., 1997). The method results show it was successful but author agrees that it failed on some occasions. n i=1 Yi =

24

2. Fuzzy Systems with Supervised Learning Supervised learning approach needs a teacher to tell the learner what actions to take (Er and Zhou, 2006). Supervised learning is most commonly used in pattern recognition among other applications. The most popular techniques are Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Articial Neuro-Network (ANN). Fernandez et al. (2000) presented an application of Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy approach to control a distillation column but only up to the level of simulation hence its practical implementation is still a question. Luo et al. (1995) used Fuzzy-NeuralNet based inferential control for a distillation column and the author claims that the algorithm is running successfully for more than two years but still the results are reasonable and not perfect. Figure 2.11 describes how a supervised learning works, it shows a Self-learning Fuzzy Logic Control (SLFLC). The basic level is a simple fuzzy logic controller, the second level is the self-organizing or self-learning which supervises the basic level by monitoring its performance, subsequently generating and modifying the fuzzy control rules in an online manner (?). 3. Fuzzy Systems with Reinforcement Learning Reinforcement learning (RL) is also called unsupervised learning as it does not need teacher to teach it which actions to take in a given situation. Reinforcement approach is that the learner must discover itself which actions will yield the most reward by trying all the possible actions in the action set(Sutton and Barto, 1998). Fuzzy Q Learning is one of the most favourite method of RL. The theory of Q-Learning convergence was proved by Christopher Watkins in 1989. Watkins and Dayan (1992) proved that Q-learning is a form of model-free reinforcement learning. The greatest advantage of this method is that there is no need to remember situations or actions for more than a short period of time (Watkins, 1989). Q-learning dose not need model to check that which of the available action is

25

Figure 2.11: (2000))

A supervised learning fuzzy controller. (Redrawn from Szczepaniak

suitable for the environment. Lately Q-learning has been enhanced by a new technique called delayed-Q learning. Glorennec (1994) was one of the rst who proposed the fuzzy version of QLearning called Fuzzy Q-Learning (FQL) and Dynamic Fuzzy Q-Learning (DFQL). Glorennec and Joue (1997) proposed an adaptation of Watkins Q-Learning for Fuzzy inference systems where both the actions and the Q-functions are inferred from fuzzy rules. They compared this learning technique with Genetic Algorithm approach and proved that Q-Learning is more eective than GA. Margaglio et al. (1997) applied the Q-learning technique for on-line tuning of the fuzzy controller to control the composition of a distillation column. The technique was successful in some respect although not perfect and it was applied with only two inputs, product composition (Xb) and its set point (Xbr), of a distillation column where as practically there are more than one variable aecting the process. The main limitation of that model was not addressing the dynamics of the feed into the DC, which was duly admitted by the team that work is required to make it a real world 26

application. Joue (1998) used Fuzzy Actor-Critic Learning (FACL) and Fuzzy Q-Learning (FQL) to tune online the conclusion part of Fuzzy Inference System (FIS). He used these techniques on number of real world problems and reported the success. Gaskett (2002) used Q-Learning to reduce the programming for the robot and to increase its abilities. Er and Deng (2004) used Fuzzy Dynamic Q-Learning to tune the Fuzzy Inference System online of the wall-following mobile robot. Er and Zhou (2006) used the Q-Learning to generate not only the consequent part but also the preconditioning parts of the Fuzzy Inference System. All above scholars have been attracted to Q-Learning due to its many features including simple structure as it mainly depends upon the feedback of the system but it has the drawback that its response time is large enough to produce instability in fast dynamic system. As Q-Learning have been chosen by majority of the above researchers as a method of learning so it is appropriate to review the working of this algorithm in detail. Q-Learning Q-learning comes from Q-Function and that function can be dened as optimal action-value function. Q-Learning basically is one of learning algorithm from a long list of learning algorithms which reward their agent based on their previous action. Q-learning has been widely used for the reinforcement learning and especially for fuzzy systems developed for chemical process. Q-Learning belongs to a family called Temporal Dierence Method and has been explained by Glorennec (1994) as an environment in which agents learn themselves by comparing their actions and the results of those actions. Q-learning tries to predict the future reinforcement from the set of already established state-action pairs. Advantages of Q-Learning are: No model is needed No separate (supervised) learning of an agent 27

 Can be applied on complex systems where it is dicult to obtain a dynamic behaviour of the process Inexpensive, less computing power is needed Simple to apply Disadvantage of Q-Learning is that it is slow because it waits for the result to be available of its previous action. To understand how Q-Learning works suppose there are two input variables and one output variable and as per generic fuzzy logic principle they can be expressed as follows: If A1 is A1i and B 1 is B 1i Then Y is Yi . (2.7)

It can be explained that change in input variables result in corresponding change in output variable depending upon the type of membership functions. The relation between input and output variables can be linear and non-linear depending upon the membership functions and this is one of the strength of FLC over PID controller that in contrast to the PID controller whose behaviour is linear across the board the FLC changes its behaviour from linear to non-linear across the prole depending upon the process dynamics. The output of the FIS is the aggregation of all rules which can be given as:
N

Y =
i=1

ai Y i ,

(2.8)

where ai is the weight of the rule i and N is the number of rules. By introducing Q-learning into the fuzzy controller the controller is forced to choose the action based on not only input variable values but also the result of the previous action of the controller. In this way the controller will have more knowledge in selecting action for a given input variables. It means that the output part of the rule-base has to carry number of dierent values J against the same set of input parameters. The rule-base is now modied in the following way; 28

If A1 is A1i and B 1 is B 1i Then Y is Yi 1 with attributes q [i , 1] or Y is Yi 2 with attributes q [i , 2] . . . or Y is Yi J with attributes q [i , J ] The above expression shows that learner has to choose between the dierent rules for the same set of input variables each time when the feedback shows that controller is not performing well. As Figure 2.12 shows, the Reinforcement learning is an unsupervised learning and does not need teacher to learn what to do and how to do. Reinforcement learning depends on feedback of the controller and modies the rules basis on the performance of the previous state of the manipulated (output) variable. Reinforcement learning is successful where process is dicult to model and the plant behaviour is highly non linear. It works by rewarding the FIS by comparing the current state of the output variable against the previous state. Latest literature on the topic of fuzzy controller application to distillation column control can be found in Khazraee et al. (2011) that applied a Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) on a reactive batch distillation column, Kapoor et al. (2011) that experimented by applying classical PID controller and intelligent Fuzzy controller to control the composition of a reactive distillation column and reported that fuzzy performed better than the classical PID controller, Lima et al. (2011) experimented with a high boiling point crude oil in a molecular distillation process and compared the results of mathematical model to that of fuzzy model and claimed that results were comparable and fuzzy models took less time and eort to develop than their mathematical models, Baloch et al. (2010) concluded in their experiment that 29

Figure 2.12: A self-learning layer added to a xed rule base fuzzy controller. (Redrawn from Szczepaniak (2000)) building a conventional model for a non-linear process is dicult than the model developed in ANFIS and even that ANFIS model whose data was taken from the actual distillation column was not successful which shows error in their model, Salahshoor and Hamzehnejad (2010) developed a novel method of modelling a non-linear process by using ANFIS, and Sun et al. (2010) applied a self-adaptive intelligent fuzzy-Smith control strategy to control a continuous process for rening high purity acetonitrile synthesized by dimethyl sulphate and sodium cyanide.

30

Chapter 3 The Proposed Method

The proposed fuzzy inference system is a classic fuzzy logic controller details of which are presented in this chapter. Also presented are the details of distillation column and the selection of control structure. Fuzzy control system is often referred to as Fuzzy Inference System (FIS) or Fuzzy Logic Controller (FLC) so now all three terms will be used alternatively. The basic concept of this thesis was to develop a fuzzy logic controller, preferably by using a industrial control system software, for a binary distillation column that can be used later in a full commercial scale plant or on a pilot plant in the petrochemical industry. Further a comparison between the performance of FLC and PID controller is added to have a better understanding of their weaknesses and strengths. The comparison will help in future while selecting a type of controller for a particular application. A general overview of the concept is presented in Figure 3.1.

3.1

The Fuzzy Inference System Design

The most important aspect of the design of the fuzzy controller is the application itself. For example the FLC designed for a discrete process control will be dierent from the one for a continuous process control application. Similarly even within the continuous process control one fuzzy system could be dierent from the other fuzzy system. One fuzzy system may need only one input variable while the other need two 31

Figure 3.1: General overview of the experiment concept. or three input variable to function properly and this is the beauty of fuzzy control that it can be easily modied to the requirement of the particular application. The fuzzy controller developed for the application of this thesis is a TakagiSugeno type fuzzy controller. Sugeno type fuzzy systems use defuzzied outputs called singletons which make the system simpler. As this thesis focus more on the industrial application and environment in contrast to most other scholars research which deal with the academic setup that is why simpler option is selected. In the same way only two major input variables are used as 95 percent of the process control applications falls in this category. Input membership function chosen are T rapezoids, again selection was inuenced by the application as these type of membership functions are easy to understand. Number of rules are also kept to minimum, only thirteen. Output membership function are singletons and the number of output variable is one, again 95 percent of the process control applications falls in this category. Number of membership functions for input and output varies from two to nine. FIS system for this experiment is consist of following 5 components that are shown in block diagram in Figure 3.2 and an equivalent FIS in Rockwell fuzzy designer software environment in Figure 3.3; 32

Figure 3.2: General overview of the proposed fuzzy system.

Figure 3.3: Equivalent fuzzy system in Rockwell software (FuzzyDesigner).

33

1. Input variables 2. Method of fuzzication through membership functions for input variables 3. Rule-base (if-then rules) 4. Method of defuzzication through membership functions for output variables 5. Output variables Input Variables Input variables for this experiment are derived from the process variable of the control loop. In this case it is the temperature of the tray 50 of the distillation column. Four input variables are being used, T empError, DeltaError, N LT emp, and N LLT emp. T empError determines the oset between the set point and the process variable and DeltaError calculates how fast or slow the oset is increasing or decreasing while the remaining two input variables are specialized input variables only active in particular situations. N LT emp helps in bringing out controller when controller falls into extreme non-linear high temperature region of distillation column whereas N LLT emp does the same thing when controller falls into the extreme non-linear low temperature region of distillation column. In most of the process control applications of fuzzy control two major input variables namely error and rateof changeof error are used and this is also true for this experiment. Fuzzication Rockwell fuzzy designer oers only S type and T rapezoids shapes of membership functions. As T rapezoids are the most common form so they were picked for this experiment. Also during Matlab experiments some results were available that helped in selecting the membership functions. Nine terms, labels, for T empError input variable were used, namely BigBigN egative, BigBigP ositive, BigN egative, BigP ositive, BigN egative1, BigP ositive1, SmallN egative, SmallP ositive, and M edium. See Figure 3.4. Five terms, labels, for DeltaError input variable were used, namely 34

Figure 3.4: Error variable Input Membership functions in Rockwell software (FuzzyDesigner). BigN egative, BigP ositive, SmallN egative, SmallP ositive, and M edium, see Figure 3.5. Two terms, labels, for N onLinearT emp input variable were congured namely high and low but only one, high, was used, see Figure 3.7. Two terms, labels, for N onLinearlowT emp input variable were congured namely high and low but none of them was used, see Figure 3.7. With reference to Figure 3.4 and Figure 3.5 a point is worth mentioning that membership functions do not always add up to 1 as generally is assumed. From the results in chapter 4 we have observed that this has not any bad eect on the performance of the fuzzy controller. Rule-base Total 13 rules, Figure 3.8, were developed to capture all the possible scenarios of relationship among the input and output membership functions but one was made passive as it had no signicance in the current set of data for this study, however it

35

Figure 3.5:

Delta error variable Input Membership functions in Rockwell software

(FuzzyDesigner).

Figure 3.6: Non-Linear variable Input Membership functions in Rockwell software (FuzzyDesigner). 36

Figure 3.7: Non-Linear Low variable Input Membership functions in Rockwell software (FuzzyDesigner).

37

could be used wherever a low temperature nonlinear region is present in the distillation column temperature prole. It was later felt that number of rules were still high for a common application in process control and could be minimized further but time constraints did not allow further experimentation in this regard. The rule base in Figure 3.8 in text format is shown in Table 3.1.

Figure 3.8: Rule base in Rockwell software (FuzzyDesigner).

38

Table 3.1: Rockwell RuleBase Text No Rule 1 2 3 IF TempError is Big Big Negative THEN Output is Big Positive IF TempError is Big Big Positive THEN Output is Big Negative IF TempError is Medium AND DeltaError is medium THEN Output is Medium 4 5 6 IF DeltaError is Big Negative THEN Output is Big Positive IF DeltaError is Big Positive THEN Output is Big Negative IF TempError is Big Big Negative AND DeltaError is Small Negative THEN Output is Small Positive 7 IF TempError is Big Big Positive AND DeltaError is Small Positive THEN Output is Small Negative 8 IF TempError is Small Negative OR Big Negative THEN Output is Big Positive 9 IF TempError is Small Positive OR Big Positive THEN Output is Big Negative 10 11 12 13 IF NonLinearTemp is High THEN Output is Big Negative IF TempError is Big Negative 1 THEN Output is Big Positive IF TempError is Big Positive 1 THEN Output is Big Negative IF NonLinearLowTemp is Low THEN Output is Big Positive 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 Weight 1.00 1.00 0.3

39

Defuzzication As the chosen FIS is Takagi-Sugeno type fuzzy controller so the defuzzication membership function are Singleton. Five terms, labels, namely, BigP ositive, BigN egative, P ositive, N egative, and M edium were used. Singleton membership functions are simple, use less computing resources, easy to work with, and better suited for process control applications. Output Membership functions in Rockwell software are shown in Figure 3.9.

Figure 3.9: Output Membership functions in Rockwell software (FuzzyDesigner).

3.2

The Controller Software

Matlab software for the development and execution of fuzzy controller has been the favourite choice of the scholars for distillation column control. Being practising control engineer the author had the wish to develop a fuzzy controller in the real industrial software like Honeywell Experion, Rockwell PlantPAX/AllenBradley, Emerson DeltaV, Yokogawa CentumVP, to name a few, being used by the petrochemical 40

industry . While exploring the possibility it was found out that at least two of control system manufacturers, Emerson DeltaV and Rockwell AllenBradely, has now introduced fuzzy logic controller in their suite of applications. Further investigations revealed that DeltaV software is a kind of black box and has no exibility in choosing and developing of the fuzzy controller components like membership functions and rule base while on the other hand Rockwell software oers the exibility of developing the fuzzy controller right from selecting membership functions, developing rule base, selecting number of variables and the type of defuzzication. So decision was made to use the Rockwell software for the development of fuzzy controller.

3.3

The Controller Hardware

While it was quite possible to run the fuzzy controller entirely in a simulation environment of Rockwell RSLogix Emulate5000 environment and have the results close to real controller but as the Rockwell AllenBradley ControlLogix L62 PLC (programmable logic controller) was available in the facility, courtesy of Zeton incorporated, Burlington Ontario, where the author works as a full time control system engineer. It was a good opportunity to use the actual industrial grade PLC in the study. After development the fuzzy controller software was downloaded into the PLC and ran it as it run normally in a typical industrial process plant. Controllogix L60 series of PLCs are the premium brand of Rockwell/AllenBradley and are used in the entire spectrum of industrial applications right from nuclear power plants, oil reneries, auto manufacturing to food processing and waste water treatment facilities. The application of fuzzy controller in this specic PLC brand will surely boost the level of condence of the fuzzy logic technology among practising process control community.

41

3.4

Experiment Setup

Initial proposal was to develop distillation column in a simulation environment and later use the nal controller design on the real distillation column but due to number of constraints real distillation column option was dropped for future work and study was limited to simulation only. As Rockwell fuzzy designer was preferred over Matlab for the development of fuzzy system so at the end there were following three options available for the setup of the experiment in which distillation column could be dynamically mimic in real time: 1. Rockwell fuzzy controller in L62 PLC and Chemcad distillation column simulator in a PC using OPC (OLE for process control) link 2. Rockwell fuzzy controller in L62 PLC and Myanah Mimic simulation software for distillation column in a PC using OPC link 3. Rockwell fuzzy controller and distillation column simulation downloaded into L62 PLC. (Chemcad distillation column simulation results programmed into Rockwell ControlLogix software and then link them internally to fuzzy controller) CHEMCAD from Chemstations Inc. is one of the leading simulation software for the petrochemical industry. The software was available in the facility, courtesy of Zeton incorporated, Burlington, Ontario, but detailed study revealed that linking the CHEMCAD simulation running in a separate PC with the fuzzy controller running in a PLC will be a daunting task which at the end will not even possible because CHEMCAD is not inherently build for this purpose. In second option Myanah local representative was contacted that if the software could be temporarily licensed for academic purpose but certain limitations and corporate restrictions prevented Myanah from issuing the license. Myanah Mimic simulation software would have been a perfect combination for this type of control

42

setup as this software has been designed to work directly with Emerson DeltaV control software and hardware running on the same PC and work with other PLCs and process controllers through industry standard OPC link. At the end decision was made to use the third option, run the distillation column simulation in the CHEMCAD and then programme the results into Rockwell RSLogix5000 software and to link them to fuzzy controller internally to have the realtime setup and nally download this programme into L62 PLC. Figure 3.10 shows the experiment setup. Sensitivity analysis was carried out in Chemcad to establish the relationship between variation in steam ow and corresponding change in tray 50 temperature around the base condition of reboiler duty and tray 50 temperature, tray 50 temperature was selected as the point of control of composition. The exercise was repeated for all the eight cases of feed ow and feed composition. Steady state models for determining the best control structure have been in use for a long time and if used with experience and general knowledge of distillation columns are adequate for addressing most of the problems and proves to be better than dynamic models (Fruehauf and Mahoney, 1993) as dynamic models need more resources than steady state models. A point of caution however is steady state models have their limitations too and should be used intelligently (Mahoney and Fruehauf, 1999). The two stand out limitations of steady state models are their inability of responding to initial startup of the operation of the column when there is maximum control action taking place and ignoring the eect of liquid holdup on column trays. In applications where prior knowledge of the process is unknown dynamic simulation models will be must but in other applications where enough information is at hand then steady state models can be used along with the experience and general knowledge of the operation of distillation column. Steadystate models could also helpful in determining optimal tray locations for inferential control by nding the trays whose temperatures show the strongest correlation with product composition (Riggs, 2008). In the current study steady state model was used to have a control relationship between the reboiler duty and the tray 50 temperature response so that this relationship can be used to highlight the nonlinearity in the 43

distillation column variables but at the same time the importance of dynamic models can not be ignored as dynamic models give the complete picture of the operation of the distillation column. Refer to Figure 4.2, a dead time block and a lead-lag block was added to the control routine between the controllers and their respective distillation columns to introduce the process dead time and the process lag time which is the characteristic of the actual distillation column. The values used for those blocks were in the order of seconds and were identical for both controller routines. The values for this particular application came from the experience of the people who are involved with the designing of distillation columns in their day to day job.

Figure 3.10: The diagram of experiment setup.

3.5

Distillation Column under Study

The theoretical distillation column chosen for this study is a binary distillation column, binary distillation column is one which separates two products from the mixture of feed coming into the column. The top product will be one with lighter molecular weight (lower boiling point) and bottom product will be one with the heavier molecular weight (higher boiling point). A mixture considered in this 44

Figure 3.11: Proposed distillation column and control structure. study is makeup of methanol and water. Methanol has lower boiling point, 65 degree Celsius, than water, 100 degree Celsius, so it will be converted into vapours earlier than water and will be collected from the top draw and water will be collected from the bottom draw. Figure 3.11 shows the hypothetical distillation column and control structure. Figure 3.12 shows the hypothetical distillation column in Chemcad simulation environment.

3.5.1

Salient Features of the Distillation Column

Salient features of the selected distillation column at the base conditions are as follows; Number of trays = 70 Pressure drop across column = 5 psig Mass reux ratio = 2.85 Reboiler duty = 0.5347 MMBtu/hr 45

Figure 3.12: Equivalent Distillation column in Chemcad simulation environment. Condenser duty = -0.3920 MMBtu/hr Feed stream stage = 35 Feed mixture = Water and methanol Feed temperature = 25.00 degree Celsius Feed pressure = 15.30 psig Feed owrate = 950.00 lb/hr Feed (water) owrate = 700.00 lb/hr Feed (methanol) owrate = 250.00 lb/hr Methanol percentage = 26 percent

3.5.2

Feed Stage Base Conditions

Feed stage, tray 35 base conditions are as follows; Temperature = 100.00 degree Celsius Pressure = 17.73 psig Liquid owrate = 1625.59 lb/hr 46

Vapor owrate = 684.15 lb/hr

3.5.3

Control Stage Base Conditions

Control stage, tray 50 base conditions are as follows; Temperature = 101.00 degree Celsius Pressure = 18.83 psig Liquid owrate = 1628.48 lb/hr Vapor owrate = 903.03 lb/hr

3.5.4

Feed Stream Base Conditions

Feed stream, inlet product, base conditions are as follows; Temperature = 25.00 degree Celsius Pressure = 15.30 psig Methanol owrate = 250.00 lb/hr Water owrate = 700.00 lb/hr

3.5.5

Distillate Stream Base Conditions

Distillate, top product, base conditions are as follows; Temperature = 83.78 degree Celsius Pressure = 15.30 psig Methanol owrate = 224.61 lb/hr Water owrate = 0.00 lb/hr

3.5.6

Bottoms Stream Base Conditions

Bottoms, bottom product, base conditions are as follows; Temperature = 123.04 degree Celsius Pressure = 20.30 psig Methanol owrate = 25.38 lb/hr

47

Water owrate = 700.00 lb/hr Detailed reports of column and reboiler proles are attached at the end as appendixes. In the study mass ows are considered instead of molar ows because most industrial distillation columns use mass ow or equivalent but not the molar ows. Also instead of using a two point control, the single point control is used (in two point control two separate control loops are used for top and bottom products while in single point control only one loop is used to control the composition of top and bottom products). Two point controls can result in saving energy but the control become so complex that advantages are not as great so single point control is mostly used in the industry (Fruehauf and Mahoney, 1993). In single point control a normal practice is to set the reux to maximum disturbance rejection condition and control the composition of the column by maintaining the tray temperature by modulating steam ow and this results in consumption of more energy than if reux were also controlled in parallel to the steam ow in two point control structure. In the design of this study the feed stream is the demand stream which means that feed entering into the column has to be stay constant. Following are the expected disturbances that are being considered for the study of the control of the distillation column: 1. Feed rate ow changes 2. Feed composition changes Pressure control is not being considered in the control structure as pressure can be kept constant by dierent means, like a vent in the condenser, designed control structure is independent of pressure control parameters. For the inventory (level) control of the holdup tank and boiler a decision has to be taken between the reux versus distillate and boilup versus bottoms ow. If the ratio is greater than 10:1 then the stream with larger ow has to be selected as controlling the level (Mahoney and Fruehauf, 1999). The column under study does not fall in this category. In the selected control structure mass ow reux ratio has 48

to be kept constant so distillate ow is used for controlling the level of holdup tank. The bottoms stream ow has to be used for controlling the level of boiler as boilup ow is already being taken for keeping the temperature at tray 50 constant. One of the advantage of controlling bigger stream is that it can be used to oset the bigger disturbances in the system. Choosing the composition control scheme is one of the greatest challenges in the design of distillation column control. Usually typical distillation column has 5 degree of freedom with the following valves available as manipulated variables: 1. Feed valve 2. Distillate valve 3. Reux valve 4. Bottoms valve 5. Heat input valve Three out of the above ve valves are already tied to the controlled variables like feed ow, holdup and boiler tank level, so it comes to remaining two valves namely reux and heat input valve. If the composition is controlled by using the reux valve it is called direct feed-split control and if heat input valve is used to control the composition then it is called indirect feed-split control. Indirect feed-split control is used as it has two advantages over the former(Mahoney and Fruehauf, 1999): 1. Temperature-boilup loop response time is faster 2. Due to inventory in the holdup tank a smooth downstream ow is guaranteed Although independent online analyzer can be used to control the composition of distillate and bottoms but this will result in a complex control due to process interactions between the two independent loops, will be costly, and with larger lag time. The author used temperature control of the tray 50 in the distillation column to control the composition. By interactive open loop testing a sensor location can be 49

determined where the eect of manipulated variable in either direction results in a approximate linear response by the temperature sensor. In this study sensor location was chosen after analyzing the column prole and reboiler duty prole where stable temperature region is between tray 40 and tray 60 and between tray 20 and tray 30. Experimentation showed that tray temperatures in the region of tray 20 to tray 30 are less sensitive to the change in steam ow than the tray temperatures in the region of tray 40 and tray 60. Consequently tray 50 temperature was chosen for the control. Further by using the worst case scenarios of feed ow rate and composition change a xed reux can be determined that will satisfy the full range of operating condition and required composition of the nal draws both from top as distillate and from bottom. The temperature measured at that point will be the setpoint of the operating conditions. In this study reux ow rate was xed at 2.85 to determine the operating parameters and temperature measured at tray 50, 101.0 degree Celsius, was used later as setpoint for control of the composition of top and bottom products. Some readers might wonder that the chosen setpoint is already higher than the water boiling point of 100 degree Celsius, but keep in mind that the column under study is a pressurized column where boiling points of components move upward than what they have normally under normal atmospheric pressure.

50

Chapter 4 Results and Discussion

In this chapter results are presented, discussed, analyzed, and summarized. The RsLogix5000 software setup is presented to show how the dierent segments of the software were arranged for both function block diagram and chart. Step by step tuning procedure is laidout for both FLC and PID controllers. Total of 13 experiments are run to show the performance of the FLC and PID controllers in the form of charts. Physical setup of the experiment is shown in Figure 4.1.

Figure 4.1: Physical setup.

51

Experiments were conducted with dierent feed ow and feed mixture combinations. Results were compared after tuning the controllers with their optimum parameters i.e. FLC controllers membership functions shapes were adjusted, rulebase was trimmed and weights were adjusted and in the same way PID controllers proportional band, reset, and rate were also tuned aggressively to have the best results at the base condition of distillation column operation. It is admitted that FLC controller took more time to adjust its parameters than its counterpart. When both controllers started performing optimally at the base conditions then actual tests were conducted to see their behaviour at dierent disturbances. Overall results showed that FLC is more stable than PID and is less susceptible to disturbances. It dealt both ow changes and composition changes eciently than PID controller. It is also admitted that PID was more precise to the level of decimals in some of the experiments than FLC although both controllers performance were within acceptable threshold.

4.1

Function Block Diagram Arrangement

As explained earlier two identical distillation column functions are created and are connected to the output of the FLC and PID controllers. In this arrangement both distillation columns are facing exactly the same disturbances but are operating independently and are controlled by their respective controllers without aecting other. At the top left of the diagram is the PID controller and at the bottom left is the FLC controller where their respective distillation columns are on the right side. A subtraction block is used to generate the error and an alarm block is used to generate the rate of change of error. PID controllers function block do not need these blocks as they have been developed to have these functions integrated to their function blocks. A set point tag is created which feeds both controllers at the same time. A fuzzy P V tag and a PID P V tag are created to map it into charts, please note mapping of P V by this arrangement had no eect on the results. Dierent make-up of the function blocks for the two controllers also had no eect on the results, this was done only 52

Figure 4.2: Function block arrangement for the experiment in Rockwell RSLogix5000 software. because the way function blocks created by the Rockwell automation are not exactly same. Functional block arrangement of the experiment is shown in Figure 4.2.

4.2

Chart Arrangement

Only necessary markers were used to clarify and emphasis the behaviour of controllers. Red pen was used for the set point which is of course is constant for the experiment of disturbances when ow and composition changes the tray 50 temperature has to be remain constant and it is the function of the controllers to adjust their outputs, by modulating steam ow, so that temperature at tray 50 remains constant which in turn guarantees the designed specications of the top and bottom products at the base conditions. This red pen will always be at 101.0 degree Celsius except for experiments where set point was changed too drastically to see the behaviour of controllers in worst out of design conditions. Blue pen is the process variable of the

53

Figure 4.3: Chart arrangement for the experiment in Rockwell RSLogix5000 software. distillation column, temperature at tray 50, controlled by PID controller; it has to be close to 101.0 degree. Light green pen is the process variable of the distillation column, temperature at tray 50, controlled by FLC controller; it also has to be close to 101.0 degree. Chart arrangement of the experiment is shown in Figure 4.3

4.3

Tuning of Controllers

Before taking on experiments to observe the performance of both controllers; they were tuned optimally. The factors considered for the optimal tuning were; Rise time Settling time Overshoot The procedure for tuning can best be described as manual tuning. Both controllers were tuned intuitively although for PID controller the built-in auto-tune func54

Figure 4.4: Fuzzy Designer on-line tuning. tionality was also used for initial parameters. The controllers were tuned for the specic narrow band of near-linear band of temperature prole. Tuning was done on-line as Rockwell software allows to change the parameters of PID and FLC controllers while they are in run mode.

4.3.1

Tuning of Fuzzy Controller

FLC for the experiment evolved from a simple controller with default parameters in the Fuzzy designer software to the nal controller in a very slow and step by step procedure. On-line tuning functionality was used extensively for tuning dierent parameters of the FLC, refer to Figures 4.4, Figure 4.5, and Figure 4.6. Placement of membership functions were initially determine by making a change and then observing the behaviour for both input and output variables. The same procedure was adopted for the rule base. When a workable solution evolved from the default setup, it had the following parameters which can be termed as initial parameters; TempError range = -100 to 100 55

Figure 4.5: Fuzzy Designer on-line tuning, Membership functions.

Figure 4.6: Fuzzy Designer on-line tuning, Rule base.

56

 ErrorDelta range = -10 to 10 NLTemp range = 105 to 107 NLLTemp range = 90 to 97 Output range = 0 to 800 Rule weight, for all rules = 1 Further in the discussion only one number will be mentioned which automatically implies that positive and negative, like 50 will be actually +50 and -50. The above parameters were the initial parameters and when put to test the result was as shown in Figure 4.7. Figure 4.7 shows that when setpoint changes from 101.0 to 103.0 degree centigrade the oset follows the FLC at the new setpoint value by 0.4 degree.

Figure 4.7: Response of FLC controller after loading initial tuning parameters. During rst stage of tuning which resulted into the initial set of parameters it was observed that single biggest eect was from the input variable of T empError. To reduce the oset observed in Figure 4.7 the range of the input variable T empError was reduced from 100 to 50. After observing the result it was seen that oset was still there. By keeping T empError at 50, ErrorDelta range was reduced from initial 57

Figure 4.8:

Response of FLC controller after reducing TempError to 50 and Er-

rorDelta to 5 tuning parameters. value of 10 to 5. The response of the controller from Figure 4.8 showed that oset has reduced though not to a great extent but surely it has decreased. Encouraged by the result in Figure 4.8, DeltaError was further reduced but it did not result in further success. To see the full impact of minimized DeltaError it was reduced to very meagre number of 0.01. From Figure 4.9 it can be observed that when DeltaError was set to 0.01 and T empError was set to 50, system became unstable with a wide oset. Results obtained from Figure 4.9 suggested the best value of DeltaError was around 5, so the value for DeltaError was reverted back to 5. In the next step T empError which was up to now was xed at 50 was reduced to 10, while keeping DeltaError at 5, and all other parameters at their initial value. Results from this arrangement were encouraging as shown in Figure 4.10. From Figure 4.10 it was observed that oset was reduced dramatically but it was not or near perfect. In the next step T empError was further reduced while keeping DeltaError at 5 and all other parameters at their initial positions. Result from Figure 4.11 showed that oset has further shrank to very small number. Further 58

Figure 4.9:

Response of FLC controller after reducing ErrorDelta to 0.01 while

keeping TempError at 50.

Figure 4.10: Response of FLC controller after reverting ErrorDelta back to 5 while reducing TempError to 10.

59

Figure 4.11: Response of FLC controller after reducing TempError further to 5 while keeping ErrorDelta back at 5.

Figure 4.12: Response of FLC controller after keeping TempError at 5 while reducing ErrorDelta to 0.5. reducing T empError did not have any signicant eect so the value of 5 was xed as new xed value for T empError

60

In the next step it was decided to reduce the value of deltaError from its xed value of 5 to 0.5 while keeping T empError at its new xed value of 5 and keeping all other parameters at their initial values. From the response in Figure 4.12 it can be observed that controller became slow without having any improvement in the oset. So the deltaError value reverted to 5. Again attention was given to T empError and it was reduced to 1, which is of course impractical, to see the eect of such a aggressive value. Figure 4.13 conrms that T empError value of 1 is too aggressive and it introduced chattering into output of the controller. Responses from the controller suggested that the value of 5 for both T empError and DeltaError is the optimal value. But we still have the oset that can be seen from Figure 4.11.

Figure 4.13: Response of FLC controller after reducing TempError to 1 while reverting ErrorDelta back to 5. From rst stage of tuning it was observed that the eect of placement of output membership function is not as sensitive to compensate the current oset. Input variables T empError and DeltaError were already tuned to their optimal values. Input variable of N LT emp and N LLT emp were not designed to reduce the oset and to ne tune the controller performance. The last thing that could be done without 61

disturbing the whole setup was to tweak the weights of rules which were up to now not touched upon. Further analysis revealed that it is the Rule3 which has the eect on the FLC output in this region where P V is very close to SP . Rule 3 purpose is to introduce the medium response from the controller. This medium response then introduced the oset. To see the eect of Rule3, it was reduced from 1 to 0.1 while keeping T empError and DeltaError at their optimal values of 5 and all other parameters to their initial setup values.

Figure 4.14: Response of FLC controller after reverting TempError back to its best value of 5, ErrorDelta back at its best value of 5, and reducing Rule 3 weight from initial weight of 1 to 0.1. Figure 4.14 revealed that although oset has reduced to minimum of 0.02 but at the same time new value of Rule3 had introduced chattering. Further tweaking the value of Rule3 and observing the results suggested the optimal value of 0.3. This new value of 0.3 for Rule3 did not cause chattering and minimized the oset to 0.02 as shown in Figure 4.15. During tuning sometimes it happened that due to aggressive gain controller fell into the extremely nonlinear temperature region. In this region rules for controls are reverse. In normal operating region increasing steam ow reduces the temperature 62

Figure 4.15: Response of FLC controller at the best and nal values, TempError at 5, ErrorDelta at 5, and Rule 3 weight at 0.3. whereas in extremely nonlinear region increasing steam ow causes temperature to rise rapidly. To arm the controller to cope with this situation two rules were added. One rule takes care of the controller when controller falls into high temperature nonlinear region and tries to bring it back to normal operating region. The other rule takes care of the controller when it falls into low temperature nonlinear region and tries to bring it back to the normal operating region. The eectiveness of the rst rule is demonstrated in the results section. However second rule never used in this particular application as the current study is not exposed to that low temperature nonlinear region. The second rule was kept in the controller instead of deleting altogether but had made it passive so that in future it could be used if situation demands.

4.3.2

Tuning of PID Controller

After FLC controller had been tuned optimally and the results were satisfactory, PID controller was taken up for tuning and the challenge was to tune the PID controller so that it can perform better than the FLC controller or at least equivalent to that. As mentioned earlier the starting point for PID controller tuning was to have 63

the auto-tune results. Rockwell software does allow auto-tuning for PID controller in contrast to FLC controller where this type of luxury is not available. However an other control software Emerson DeltaV have the auto-tune functionality for both PID and FLC controllers. Anyhow the PID controller was put into auto-tune and the results are shown in Figure 4.16. Parameters obtained in this procedure were deployed in the PID controller. To see the eectiveness of these parameters, the setpoint was changed from 101.0 to 103.5, keep in mind that the near-linear band is only available in the range of 100.63 to 104.19 at the base conditions of 26 percent Methanol solution and the ow rate of 950 pph. Response of the controller after deploying auto-tune parameters are shown in Figure 4.17.

Figure 4.16: Auto-Tuning results in Rockwell RSLogix5000 software.

64

Figure 4.17: Response of PID controller after loading auto-tune parameters in Rockwell RSLogix5000 software. Figure 4.17 shows that the newly formed PID controller have overshoot, have larger settling time, and less rise time than the optimally tuned FLC. To optimally tune the PID controller a step by step procedure of changing one parameter while keeping all other constant was started. After each step response of the controller was observed in the light of above mentioned three performance categories namely rise time, settling time, and overshoot and further change was made to improve the response. In the rst step to improve the rise time of the controller Proportional gain (P) was slowly increased from its auto-tune value of 132.7 while keeping Integral (I) and Derivative (D) at their auto-tune values of 814.1 repeats per minute and 2.35 minutes respectively. Response of the controller is shown in Figure 4.18. Figure 4.18 shows that although rise time have become faster but the controller started oscillating. To reduce or to eliminate the oscillation P was decreased to 800 while keeping I and D at their auto-tune values. Figure 4.19 shows that the controller is still in oscillation. From here P was further reduced slowly and the best response was obtained at P = 400, which is shown in Figure 4.20. By having this new P value 65

Figure 4.18: PID controller in oscillation when P was increased to 1600 while keeping other parameters at auto-tune values. the overshoot was decreased from 103.60 to 103.56 degree. In the next step I was slowly increased from its auto-tune value of 814.1 to reduce the area under oset curve. It was observed that controller started oscillating after a certain threshold and went into sustained oscillation at I = 12800, P was kept at its new value of 400 and D was set to its auto-tune value of 2.35, refer to Figure 4.21. To eliminate the oscillation dierent values if I was checked while keeping P and D constant and found the optimal value of D at 6400 repeats per minute as shown in Figure 4.22. At this stage the performance of PID controller was comparable to that of the FLC controller. But certainly by just viewing the chart it was easy to judge that FLC was performing better in all three categories mentioned above. Up to this point parameter D of the PID controller was not touched and it was sitting on its auto-tune value. To reduce the little overshoot still present in the PID response curve the parameter D was slowly increased from its auto-tune value of 2.35 minutes while keeping all other parameters at their new explored best values of 400 and 6400 for P and I respectively. It was observed that when the value of D approached 16 66

Figure 4.19: PID controller in oscillation when P was decreased to 800 while keeping other parameters at auto-tune values.

Figure 4.20:

PID controller with P set to 400 while keeping other parameters at

auto-tune values.

67

Figure 4.21: PID controller with P set to 400 and I set to 12800 while keeping D parameter at auto-tune value.

Figure 4.22:

PID controller with P set to 400 and I set to 6400 while keeping D

parameter at auto-tune value.

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the response curve bounced without any improvement, refer to Figure 4.23. It was concluded that the optimal value of D is somewhere between 2.35 and 16. The value of D was slowly decreased and observed the response. The best response was achieved at 8, refer to Figure 4.24. Comparing both gures it can be observed that bounce has reduced and settling time is relatively shorter. To have one more closer look at the optimal values of PID controllers an other snapshot was taken, refer to Figure 4.25 with the parameter P set to 400, I set to 6400, and D set to 8. Comparing this gure with Figure 4.22, it is hard to judge any improvement except the fact that with higher values of P and I it is possible that PID might fell into sustained oscillation region in some scenario so the new higher value of D is justied, that will help in preventing the PID controller from falling into oscillation by keeping check on P and I.

Figure 4.23: PID controller with P and D set to 400 and 6400 respectively and D set to16.

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Figure 4.24: PID controller with P and D set to 400 and 6400 respectively and D reduced from 16 to 8.

Figure 4.25: PID controller with P set to 400, I set to 6400, and D set to 8.

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Figure 4.26: Eect of ow change from 950 to 900 lb/hr at constant composition

4.4

Experiments and Results

Experiment 1: Change of rate of ow from 950 to 900 lb/hr and vice versa while keeping composition constant at 26 percent MeOH Figure 4.26 shows that both controllers responded well to the disturbance of ow change. In Figure 4.27 disturbance was reversed, ow increased from 900 to 950. Although PID is more precise but FLC is better in rise time and settling time in both cases.

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Figure 4.27: Eect of ow change from 900 to 950 lb/hr at constant composition Experiment 2: Change of rate of ow from 950 to 1000 lb/hr and vice versa while keeping composition constant at 26 percent MeOH Figure 4.28 shows that both controllers responded well to the disturbance of ow change. In Figure 4.29 disturbance was reversed, ow decreased from 1000 to 950. A moderate overshoot in the PID response is well noticed.

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Figure 4.28: Eect of ow change from 950 to 1000 lb/hr at constant composition

Figure 4.29: Eect of ow change from 1000 to 950 lb/hr at constant composition

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Figure 4.30: Eect of composition change from 26 to 31 percent of MeOH at constant ow Experiment 3: Change of composition from 26 to 31 percent of MeOH and vice versa while keeping ow constant at 950 lb/hr Figure 4.30 shows that PID controller fell into sustained oscillation while FLC is within acceptable limits.

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Figure 4.31: Eect of composition change from 31 to 26 percent of MeOH at constant ow Experiment 4: Change of composition from 26 to 36 percent of MeOH and vice versa while keeping ow constant at 950 lb/hr From Figure 4.32 and Figure 4.33 FLC superiority is very evident and even it recovered quickly from the bump than PID controller in the former gure. In the next three experiments composition and ow rate are being changed simultaneously.

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Figure 4.32: Eect of composition change from 26 to 36 percent of MeOH at constant ow

Figure 4.33: Eect of composition change from 36 to 26 percent of MeOH at constant ow

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Figure 4.34: Eect of ow change from 950 to 1100 lb/hr and composition change from 26 percent methanol to 36 percent methanol. Experiment 5: Change of rate of ow from 950 to 1100 lb/hr and change of composition of feed from 26 percent methanol to 36 percent methanol, and vice versa Figure 4.34 shows that both controllers responded well to the disturbances of ow and composition change. In Figure 4.35 disturbances were reversed, ow and methanol composition decreased from 1100 to 950 and 36 percent to 26 percent respectively. Although PID is more precise but FLC is better in rise time and settling time in both cases.

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Figure 4.35: Eect of ow change from 1100 to 950 lb/hr and composition change from 36 percent methanol to 26 percent methanol. Experiment 6: Change of rate of ow from 950 to 1050 lb/hr and change of composition of feed from 26 percent methanol to 33 percent methanol, and vice versa Results from Figure 4.36 and Figure 4.37 suggested that both controllers are properly tuned as both have responded well to the disturbances in the feed ow and composition. In both cases controllers have repeated their performance that was observed in experiment 5 although a slight overshoot in the PID controller curve was well noticed.

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Figure 4.36: Eect of ow change from 950 to 1050 lb/hr and composition change from 26 percent methanol to 33 percent methanol.

Figure 4.37: Eect of ow change from 1050 to 950 lb/hr and composition change from 33 percent methanol to 26 percent methanol.

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Experiment 7: Change of rate of ow from 950 to 1000 lb/hr and change of composition of feed from 26 percent methanol to 30 percent methanol, and vice versa From Figure 4.38 it is very clear that PID controller totally failed in this situation and went into sustained oscillation. FLC had also some oscillation but to a very minute level within acceptable range. Oscillation in the PID controller can be attributed to the fact that steam ow and tray 50 temperature relationship did not have same linearity as it can be found in other proles of feed ow and composition at this very specic point. On the other hand FLC showed its superiority by performing within acceptable limits even in this dierent environment. In normal operation of the plant PID controllers are tuned to the normal operating conditions or within a specic operating band and if the disturbance hit the plant then PID controller usually unable to handle the situation and operator put the controller into manual mode till the time disturbances are gone or the controller is tuned to the new set of conditions. However when feed conditions were back to normal both controller performed within acceptable limits. Concern was raised about the sharp termination of FLC curve at the very setpoint value. One suspicion was that FLC controller might reached its limit, fell into saturation. To check that experiment was repeated and snapshot were taken at higher resolution and at the same time FLC controller output was observed while it travelled from its start journey to its destination. It was observed that FLC was dynamic and was far away from its lower limit of of output when it reached the desired setpoint value. Sharp curves of the FLC controller can be attributed to the combination of factors including tighter tuning, large number of membership functions centred at the prole centre of input variables, and the rule base. From results of the preceding seven experiments it can be concluded that FLC performed well in all the three categories of rise time, settling time and overshoot. PID was better than FLC in precision, close to setpoint up to second decimal, at some occasions but it failed at two occasions and went into sustained oscillation.

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Figure 4.38: Eect of ow change from 950 to 1000 lb/hr and composition change from 26 percent methanol to 30 percent methanol.

Figure 4.39: Figure 4.38 with dierent zoom on a dierent day to check whether FLC fell into saturation.

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Figure 4.40: Eect of ow change from 1000 to 950 lb/hr and composition change from 33 percent methanol to 26 percent methanol.

Figure 4.41: Figure 4.40 with dierent zoom on a dierent day to check whether FLC fell into saturation.

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Figure 4.42: Eect of setpoint change from 101.0 to 104.0 degree at the base conditions. Experiment 8: Change of setpoint at the base conditions of 950 lb/hr ow and 26 percent methanol composition of feed Experiments from 8 to 11 show that how a set point change could aect the controllers performance. Refer to Figure 4.42, the controllers were originally tuned for the step change at the base conditions from 101.0 to 103.5 degree. The response in this experiment was as expected. It was the same region for which both controllers had been tuned.

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Figure 4.43: Eect of setpoint change from 101.0 to 97.8 degree and vice versa at 36 percent methanol composition and 1100 pph ow. Experiment 9: Change of setpoint at 1100 lb/hr ow and 36 percent methanol composition of feed Refer to Figure 4.43, both controllers performed well, due to tighter tuning results were astonishing. The oset in the response curves of both controllers at the setpoint of 97.8 degree is unexplained. The only explanation could be the fact that 97.8 degree temperature needs a steam ow of 784.3 pph which is very close to the maximum available steam ow of 800. Both controllers might have pushed the maximum steam ow portion of which might have lost in the dynamics of distillation column.

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Figure 4.44: Eect of setpoint change from 101.0 to 98.5 degree and vice versa at 33 percent methanol composition and 1050 pph ow. Experiment 10: Change of setpoint at 1050 lb/hr ow and 33 percent methanol composition of feed Refer to Figure 4.44, both controllers performed optimally. A little bump in the curve of both controllers can be attributed to the fact that temperature drops rapidly when steam ow increases from 404.0 to 448.0 pph. Both controllers responded to this sudden drop and remained stable and on course to their ultimate destination of new setpoint 98.5 degree.

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Figure 4.45: Eect of setpoint change from 101.0 to 102.8 to 99.8 degree and back to 101.0 at 30 percent methanol composition and 1000 pph ow. Experiment 11: Change of setpoint at 1000 lb/hr ow and 30 percent methanol composition of feed Refer to Figure 4.45, this is the particular region where PID controller failed earlier too. It showed that even optimally tuned PID controller is prone to oscillation. It also proves that if PID failed at this randomly selected operational condition there must be other scenarios in the whole prole of 26 percent to 36 percent of methanol composition and 950 pph ow to 1100 pph ow where PID could potentially fail. In contrast FLC performance was better and it remained within acceptable limits.

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Figure 4.46: Eect of randomly selected setpoint change and disturbances. Experiment 12: Change of setpoint and disturbances randomly Refer to Figure 4.46, both controllers repeated their earlier performance well. PID controller went into oscillation in the specic region whereas FLC did not. FLC was also more agile in responding to quick changes. In a way this was the true test as it almost mimic the rapidly changing conditions at the distillation column.

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Figure 4.47: Eect of falling into extremely non-linear region of temperature prole. Experiment 13: Falling into extremely non-linear region Refer to Figure 4.47, it is likely that due to some operational problems temperature measurement could fall into non-linear region. FLC could use its inherent characteristic of rules to ward o this problem whereas PID could not. These type of troubles are faced by operation sta at distillation column sites that once PID gets aected by the disturbance then they have to take the controller into manual mode adjust its output and put it back to automatic mode. During experimentation it happened that both controllers fell into this non-linear region where increasing steam ow causes temperature to increase rapidly in contrast to near-linear region where increasing steam ow causes temperature to drop. Two rules were developed for FLC, one for high temperature non-linear region and other for low temperature non-linear region. In this particular case there is only high non-linear region so the rule for low temperature non-linear region was made passive. This shows the power and exibility of FLC where certain rules can be developed to tackle certain issues.

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4.5

Summary of Results

Results in section 4.4 showed that both FLC and PID controllers performed neck to neck except at couple of occasions where PID fell into oscillation. PID controller fell into oscillation because the distillation column temperature prole is not linear and one set of PID parameters was not able to handle a dierent prole for which it was not tuned. Also FLC used well its power of deploying situation specic rules to counter the disturbances. PID controller was better at some occasions in precision, closer to setpoint value up to second decimal. Tuning wise FLC is harder to tune as it has more parameters to tune whereas PID has only three parameters to be taken care of. Interestingly enough both controllers are prone to disturbances although FLC performed better than PID in those disturbances. Results also prove that FLC is not the solution for all the evils associated with controllers although it did performed better in the design range than PID controller for this non-linear application. From experiment number 1 to experiment number 7 set point was kept at 101.0 and never changed although control set point for the 30 to 36 percent methanol and 70 to 64 percent water mixture was not at 101.0. This was done to see the eect of load disturbance change, both in terms of rate of ow and composition, at a one given set point. From the results it is safe to say that collectively FLC performed better than PID and more importantly it was more stable than its counterpart. Changing set point along with the disturbances is a complete another study. Experiments from experiment number 8 to experiment number 11 showed the phenomenon that how a set point change in a distillation column could aect the performance of the controller. Figure 4.48 and Figure 4.49 of temperature proles of distillation column show that how temperature varies non-linearly in the distillation column from one tray to other tray and that makes it dicult to control with traditional PID controllers.

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Figure 4.48: Temperature prole of Distillation column under study at 950 l/hr of ow and 26 percent of methanol.

Figure 4.49: Temperature prole of Tray 50 of Distillation column under study at 950 l/hr of ow and 26 percent of methanol.

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Chapter 5 Conclusion and Future Work

5.1 Conclusion

Results presented in the chapter 4 prove that FLC could perform better than PID controller for a distillation column control and reason behind this is the inherent structure of both controllers. PID is based on linear philosophy and it fails whenever the object that it is controlling deviate from the linear curve. Distillation column temperature curve is one of the nest example of this nonlinearity as the Figure 4.48 and Figure 4.49 show. On the other hand FLC is built on non-linear structure so it adapts to any control structure easily. Non-linearity can be developed easily by dening the membership functions scaling and their shapes, it can be introduces into the rule base and in the output membership functions. So right from input components to output components, FLC is a non-linear controller and that is why it performed so well. It is also concluded that exceptional situations can be tackled in FLC but not in PID control.

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5.2

Future Work

It is surprising to know that process control design engineers do not give FLC controller a serious thought and the ultimate choice is PID controller. Although fuzzy systems are starting to appear in the software suites of control system manufacturers but the end user still hesitate to use it and even to discuss about it. Future work would include following topics. 1. Application of Rockwell FLC to a real industrial distillation column 2. Trimming of number of rules in this thesis 3. A survey of end user and control system integrator about their hesitation of using FLC in their plants and facilities 4. A simple mechanism, could be genetic algorithm, that will suggest appropriate parameters for a fuzzy controller for a particular applications

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Appendix A Appendix: Distillation Column Temperature Proles

A.1 Distillation Column Temperature Prole at 950 pph ow and 26 percent of Methanol

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Distillation Column Temperature Prole at 1000 pph ow and 30 percent of Methanol

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Distillation Column Temperature Prole at 1050 pph ow and 33 percent of Methanol

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Distillation Column Temperature Prole at 1100 pph ow and 36 percent of Methanol

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Distillation Column Temperature Prole at 900 pph ow and 26 percent of Methanol

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Distillation Column Temperature Prole at 1000 pph ow and 26 percent of Methanol

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Distillation Column Temperature Prole at 950 pph ow and 31 percent of Methanol

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Distillation Column Temperature Prole at 950 pph ow and 36 percent of Methanol

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Appendix B Appendix: Distillation Column Tray50 Temperature Proles

B.1 Tray50 Temperature Prole versus Reboiler Duty at various ow and composition of feed and Methanol

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B.2

Tray50 Temperature Prole versus Reboiler Duty at 900 pph ow and 26 percent composition of feed and Methanol respectively

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Tray50 Temperature Prole versus Reboiler Duty at 1000 pph ow and 26 percent composition of feed and Methanol respectively

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Tray50 Temperature Prole versus Reboiler Duty at 950 pph ow and 31 percent composition of feed and Methanol respectively

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Tray50 Temperature Prole versus Reboiler Duty at 950 pph ow and 36 percent composition of feed and Methanol respectively

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Appendix C Appendix: FLC and PID Controllers Code

C.1 FLC and PID Controllers Code, exported from RSLogix5000 in L5X/XM L format
This code is less than one sixth of the original code. The intention was to make full code as part of the thesis but after realizing that it will add-up more than 100 pages in addition to the existing 18, it was restricted to a sample only, to let the reader feel for it.

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