Fuzzy Control of a Multivariable Nonlinear Process

A. Iriarte Lanas1, G. L.A. Mota1, R. Tanscheit1, M.M. Vellasco1, J.M.Barreto2

1
DEE-PUC-Rio, CP 38.063, 22452-970 Rio de Janeiro - RJ, Brazil
e-mail: 1(ricardo, marley)@ele.puc-rio.br; 2barreto@inf.ufsc.br
Abstract

2: Description of the Plant

This paper presents a qualitative control of a fluid mixer,
which is a multivariable and intrinsically non-linear
plant. The mixer has as inputs two fluids of different
colours and the output is the colour of the resulting mix.
The control system consists of two independent fuzzy
controllers which are responsible for maintaining the
water level at a given height and for adjusting the colour
of the fluid in the mixing tank. The main points studied
are the response when the desired colour is changed and
when the output flow changes. Simulation results show
that the approach of using two independent controllers,
with simple rule-bases, can give good results.

1: Introduction
Ordinary fuzzy controllers have been succesfully
applied to a variety of plants since the pioneering works
of Mamdani and colaborators [1]. In the case of
multivariable processes, the natural approach would be to
consider as rules antecedents all the controller inputs,
which grow in number as the number of desired outputs,
or reference inputs, grows. This would certainly make the
process of designing the control strategy, or rule-base, a
more complex one. On the other hand, if independent
controllers are used for each reference input, rule-base
design becomes simpler and the control strategy becomes
potentially more reliable.
In the case of robot control through a learning fuzzy
controller [2], it has been shown that the use of
independent controllers for each link can give good
results. That is, the controllers, by adjusting their set of
rules, cope very well with the coupling between variables.
In this work the approach of using separate fuzzy
controllers is employed, with the purpose of verifying
whether this strategy is adequate. The plant, described in
the next section, is a fluid mixer, which, by presenting
non-linear characteristics, provides an additional
complexity and constitutes a good test for the designed
fuzzy control system.

The plant, shown in Fig.1, consists of a mixing and

two auxiliary tanks. The first auxiliary tank contains
coulored water c1, while the second one contains clear
water c2. The input flow q to the mixing tank is controlled
by two valves, which regulate the output flows q1 and q2
from the auxiliary tanks. The output flow q0, taken as a
disturbance, has the coloration c of the resulting mix and
is a function of the output pipe cross-section ab, of the
liquid level h in the mixing tank and of a constant Cd
related to the shape and material of the output pipe.
In oder to simplify the simulation, it has been
assumed that the auxiliary tanks always contain sufficient
liquid for the process to keep on running. The mixing tank
dimension is 20x10x180 cm. and the output cross-section
ab can be set to values between 0 and 0.4 cm2. The output
flow q0 lies between 0 and 60 cm3/sec. Colorations c1 and
c2 are set to 1 and 0, respectively.

Fig. 1: The Fluid Mixer

To derive a mathematical model, so that a simulated
experiments can be performed, the time needed to obtain
a uniform mixture, time delays related to flows in the
pipes and the dynamics of input and ouput valves have
been neglected [3].

The following equations model the plant dynamics:

dV
dh
= S.
dt
dt
q = q1 + q 2

q - q0 =

(1)

q 0 = Cd.ab.

(2)
(3)

2gh

where g is the gravity acceleration, V is the volume of

liquid and S is the area of the liquid surface in the mixing
tank. By using (3) in (1):
Cd.ab. 2gh q
dh
=
+
dt
S
S

(4)

The mixing process is modelled by:

dh 1
= (q1 + q 2 q 0 )
dt S
d(c0 .S.h)
dh
dc
c1.q1 c 0 .q 0 =
= S.(c0 . + h. 0 )
dt
dt
dt

(5)
(6)

By combining (5) and (6):

dc 0
1
=
.(c1.q1 c 0 (q1 + q 2 ))
dt Sh

(7)

Equations (4) and (7) describe the system's dynamics; h

and c0 are the variables to be manipulated by the
controlling system.

3: Fuzzy Control System

The control strategy is described by a set of
linguistic statements, or rules. Consider, for example, the
case where each control rule relates two input variables e
and ce to the controller ouput u, and a control algorithm
consisting of a set of rules R1, R2,..., Rn, of the IF (E is Ej)
AND (CE is CEj) THEN (U is Uj) form, connected by a
ELSE connective [4]. The combination of those rules can
be expressed mathematically (by its membership
function) as:
RN (e,ce,u) = f1[R1 (e,ce,u), ...., Rn (e,ce,u)]

(8)

where f1 expresses the ELSE connective. In (8) above,

each control rule j can be expressed as:
Rj (e,ce,u) = f2 [f3 (E (e), CEj (ce)), Uj (u)]
j

(9)

In (9), E = {e}, CE = {ce}, U = {u} are finite

universes and Ej, CEj and Uj are fuzzy subsets of those
universes. The operator f2 stands for implication [5], and
f3 is the interpretation of the connective AND, which is

usually taken as min (). The controller decides which

action to take through a compositional rule of inference.
As is generally the case in control, the controller inputs
are real measured values given by singletons, and called
here es and ces. The controller output fuzzy set Us will
thus be given by:
Us(u) = f1[f2 (E1(es) CE1(ces), U1(u)), ...
...., f2 (En(es) CEn(ces), Un(u))]

(10)

Since the process requires at its input non-fuzzy

values, the controller output fuzzy set must be
defuzzified, the result being a value us.
In the fluid mixer under consideration, the control
system has to be designed to keep both the output
coloration c0 and the liquid height h in the mixing tank at
desired setpoints. The quantitative information needed by
the control system in order to attain those goals is given
by the coloration error ec and change in error ec, the
height error eh and the ouput flow q0. Since the chosen
strategy makes use of two independents fuzzy controllers,
one for height control and another for coloration control,
it is more convenient to choose as output variables the
total flow q (equation 2) and the proportion qr of coloured
water in the total flow, defined as:
q1
(11)
qr =
q1 + q 2
The height controller has two quantitative inputs, eh and
q0, and one ouput, q. The coloration controller has as
quantitative inputs ec and ec, and as its ouput qr. There
is a slight difference between the height and coloration
controllers. While in the former precision is not a
fundamental factor, in the latter the goal is to have a fine
control, with null steady-state error if possible; thus the
use of a structure with PI characteristics.

3.1: Height Control

In the design of the height controller, fuzzy sets NB,
NM, Z, M, B, PB are assigned to Eh={eh}, and fuzzy sets
Z, S,M, B, VB to Q = {q} and Q0 = {q0} , as specified by
their membership functions shown in Fig. 2 and Fig. 3
below. The universes of discourse for each variable are
clearly shown in those figures. The non-fuzzy actual
values of the measured input variables are mapped to the
chosen universes of discourse through scaling factors GEh
and GQ0, which are part of blocks S0 and S1 in the
simulation diagram of Fig. 6. The resulting values are
called ehs and q0s. The defuzzified controller output qs is
mapped to the process input actual values through a
scaling factor GQ, so that q = qs x GQ. In this controller,
f1 is implemented by max and f2 by min; Mean of Maxima
(MOM) [6] is used for defuzzification.

Fig. 2: Membership functions for Eh

Fig. 3: Membership functions for Q and Q0

The rule-base for height control is summarized in Table I,
where the entries correspond to the values of Q.

Eh

Q
PB
PM
Z
NM
NB

Z
M
S
Z
Z
Z

S M B VB
B VB VB VB
M B VB VB
S M B VB
Z S M B
Z Z M B

Fig. 5: Membership functions for Qr

The larger number of fuzzy sets used for the

controller output in coloration control, as compared to
height control, is due to the requirement of higher
accuracy in the coloration of the resulting mix than that
for the level of liquid in the mixing tank. In fact, the
reason for keeping h at a desired setpoint is mainly to
prevent an undesirable overflow in that tank.
The rule-base for coloration control is summarized in
Table II, where the entries are the values of Qr.

Q0
Table I: Rule-base for height control

3.2: Coloration Control

In the coloration controller, fuzzy sets NB, NB, Z,
PM and PB are used for Ec={ec} and Ec={ec}, while
fuzzy sets NVB, NB, NM, NS, Z, PS, PM, PB and PVB
are used for the controller output Qr={qr}, as specified
by their membership functions shown in Fig. 4 and Fig. 5.
The universes of discourse are as shown in those figures.
The actual measured values of the controller inputs are
mapped to the universes of discourse through scaling
factors GEc and GEc, (contained in S2 and S3 in the
diagram of Fig. 6), the result being variables ecs and ecs.
The defuzzified controller output qrs is mapped to the
process input actual values through a scaling factor
GQr. The actual input flows to the fluid mixer are given
by q1=qrq and q2=qrq1. In this controller, f1 is implemented by max, and f2 by product [6]; defuzzification is
performed through Centre of Gravity (COG), which in
general provides smoother responses than MOM.
Fig. 4: Membership functions for Ec and Ec

Ec

Qr NB NM Z PM PB
Z
PB NVB NB NM NS
Z
PS
PM NB NM NS
Z
PS PM
Z NM NS
Z
PS PM PB
NM NS
Z
PS PM PB PVB
NB
Ec
Table II: Rule-base for coloration control

4: Simulated experiments
The process response will depend on the scaling
factors, which can be empirically set beforehand and then
tuned in order to improve the controller performance. For
example, in the case of the fluid mixer, the range
established for q and q0 was from 0 to 60 cm3. Since the
corresponding universes of discourse are [0,4], GQ and
GQ0 were initially set at 15. This value gave origin to
satisfactory responses and did not need to be tuned. The
maximum possible height error eh was assumed to be 7
cm, which, considering the corresponding universe as
[-2,2], gives GEh=0.3. In order to have good accuracy in
coloration, and by noting that the universe of discourse is
[-2,2] for that variable, the scaling factor GEc was

eventually set at 200; GEc was set at 1500. Finally,

GQr was made equal to 1/15.
In the simulation MATLAB, its associated tool
SIMULINK and the FuzzyToolbox have been used. The
simulation diagram is shown in Fig. 6.
Experiment 1: The resulting mix coloration
behaviour for output valve settings of 0.1, 0.2 and 0.4 cm2
is shown in Fig. 7, when a step from 0.1 to 0.3 is applied
to the reference input. The level of liquid in the mixing
tank should be kept constant 30 cm. It can be seen that the
larger the output valve opening, the faster the change in
coloration. Since the level of liquid must be kept
unchanged, the larger the output flow, the larger the input
one, which causes a faster change in coloration. It can be

concluded that the coloration controller tries to reach the

reference input as fast as possible, but this will also
depend on the action of the height controller on the input
flow.
Experiment 2: The level (height) of liquid in the
mixing tank is shown in Fig. 8 when a step from 10 to 50
cm is applied to the height reference input. Output valve
settings of 0.1 and 0.2 cm2 have been used.; the final
coloration should be kept unchanged at 0.5. It can be
observed that in both cases the reference is quickly
achieved, but the control is not as precise as in the
coloration case. As said before, this is due to less rigid
specifications for height control. The objective of keeping
coloration unchanged at 0.5 was also achieved.

Fig. 6: Simulation Diagram

0.1
0.2

0.4

0.2

0.1

Fig. 7: Experiment 1

Fig. 8: Experiment 2
Experiment 3: Coloration and height variations are shown
in Fig. 9 for different output valve openings when steps of

0.1 to 0.3 and of 0 to 30 cm. are apllied to the coloration

and height reference inputs, respectively. It can be
observed that the reponse-time is smaller than in
experiment 1. This can be attributed to a larger input flow,
since the step applied to the height reference input allows
a rather fast change in coloration. The response shows a
small overshoot and the output valve opening has a small
influence on the overall behaviour.

The tuning of the controllers showed, as expected, that

the system's performance is sensible to changes in the
scaling factors. Although this is beyond the scope of this
work, an automatic tuning procedure could be of help in
this respect.
This same plant is being used for further
investigations, such as automatic rule creation and
modification and the design of a MIMO fuzzy controller,
with four inputs and two outputs. Results will then be
compared to those presented in this work.

6: References

Fig. 9: Experiment 3

5: Conclusions
The simulated experiments have shown that the
approach of using two independent fuzzy controllers in
the control of a MIMO system can give good results. In
the plant considered in this work, the introduction of a
new variable allowed the reasoning process to occur in a
decoupled fashion.
The main objective of reaching a specified coloration
for the liquid in the mixing tank was achieved with very
good precision - error of less than 0.001. The height
controller was capable of maintaining the liquid level in
the mixing tank near the reference value, even without the
use of the change in error as a controller input.

[1] Mamdani, E.H., "Application of fuzzy algorithms for

control of simple dynamic plant". Proc. IEE (Control and
Science), V. 121, pp. 1585-1588, 1974.
[2] Tanscheit, R. and Lembessis, E., "On the behaviour and
tuning of a fuzzy rule-based self-organising controller". In:
Mathematics of the Analysis and Design of Process Control. P.
Borne, S.G. Tzafestas, N.E. Radhy (Eds). Elsevier Science
Publishers, 1991.
[3] Barreto, J.M., Hierarchical Control of Fluid Mixer".
Cincia e Tcnica (Brazil) , V. 13, pp 35-39, 1976.
[4] Lembessis, E. and Tanscheit, R., "The influence of
implication operators and defuzzification methods on the
deterministic output of a fuzzy rule-based controller". Proc. 4th
IFSA Congress, Brussels, 1991.
[5] Mendel, J.M. Fuzzy logic systems for engineering: a
tutorial, Proc. IEEE, V. 3, pp. 345-376, 1995.
[6] Driankov, D.; Hellendorn, H.; Rheinfrank, M., "An
Introduction to Fuzzy Control". Springer-Verlag, 1993.

Acknowledgement
This work was partially supported by the Brazilian
Research Agencies CAPES and CNPq.