2019 IEEE Student Conference on Research and Development (SCOReD)
October 15-17, 2019, Seri Iskandar, Perak, Malaysia
Hybrid Fuzzy PID Controller for Pressure Process
Control Application
T.Anitha1 , G.Gopu2 , M.Nagarajapandian3 , P.Arun Mozhi Devan4
1,3
Department of Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering, Sri Ramakrishna Engineering College, Tamil Nadu.
2
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Sri Ramakrishna Engineering College, Tamil Nadu.
4
Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Perak, Malaysia.
1,3
{nagarajapandian.m,anithacie}@srec.ac.in, 2 gopu.govindasamy@srec.ac.in, 4 arundevaeie@gmail.com.
Abstract—Process of controlling pressure in process industries
becomes difficult when the conventional controller is used because
of not capable of handling delay time, rise time and steady-
state error. So, in this work, the method of the combining
the conventional controller with the optimised hybrid system
is considered. In this hybrid system the combination of fuzzy
logic controller and PID controller is taken for evaluation and
performance analysis over the pressure process. Generally fuzzy
controllers use a rule base to describe relationships between the
variables that are used in the processes. The performance analysis
is done for different conventional controllers like PID and fuzzy
PID. The performance analysis for the controllers is based in
considering conventional resultant parameters like rise time, peak
overshoot and settling time. We proposed a hybrid fuzzy PID
controller which utilises the properties and advantage of the fuzzy
and PID controllers. The effectiveness of the Hybrid fuzzy PID
controller designed is demonstrated in pressure process.
Index Terms—Pressure process, PID controller, Hybrid Fuzzy
PID controller, Fuzzy logic control, Pressure system identification
I. I NTRODUCTION
In industries non-linearity in the process occurs due to the
presence of a stochastic noises associated with the process.
This leading to the cnages in manipulated variable, controlled
variable, dead time and other time constraints. Pressure vessels
function is to store and transmit liquid, gas or vapours under
controlled pressure. Pressure vessels played an important role
in chemical and mechanical industries as a storage vessels or
gas phase components, reactions vessels to carry out a gas
phase reaction, because it will exert pressure equally in all
directions. Pressure control is mainly used in industries where
the processes like boiler control, storage tank control and
compressor control are used to enable the start of the process
in the plant. They are mostly used in petroleum refineries,
large storage tanks, reservoirs to keep the various gases like
naphtha, ammonia, propane and butane within the desired
pressure range.
In most of the industrial processes, PI and PID controller
are often used, because of their simple structure. Proportional-
integral-derivative (PID) controller is widely used in industrial
control systems. Besides their simplicity, PID controllers can
specifically achieve prominent tracking of static reference
inputs due to the presence of integrators in the controller
structure [1]. For the control of Multi-input Multi-Output
(MIMO) non-linear process, the PID controllers cannot be
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used because of its less robust nature of handling non-
linearities and uncertainties.
In order to overcome this problem in the conventional
controllers various authors proposed combining the controllers
in order to hybridize them [2], [3], [4], [5], [6]. In their ap-
proach rule based system is introduced for the fuzzy controller.
In some applications these two controllers combined and
applied in processes like DC servomotors [7], [8]. Whereas
in some applications fuzzy switching methods are applied
for the conventional PID and fuzzy controller in order to
achieve the smooth control while switching in between the
controllers [9], [10], [11], [12]. In [13] authors used combining
the conventional fuzzy and PID controllers and obtained the
hybrid control. But this approach is limited to simulation of
first order plants and considering multiple constraints this leads
to the controller deterioration in higher order processes.
So there comes the necessity model based controllers. The
model-based controller uses the plant reference model as one
of the input parameter for the controller so that this input
minimises the error of the real-time process plant so that the
error in the output can be easily adjusted. For obtaining the
model to be used, the general questions centre around whether
to use a linear or a non-linear model and what techniques
should be used to obtain the model. The effect of these
modelling decisions are more profound for a non-linear system
like pressure process, as more care is needed to obtain a
good description of a non-linear process while at the same
time not making it too complicated causing the optimization
problem to become too time-consuming. So in this approach
the system model is obtained by using the open loop data
from the experimental pressure process plant and the model
transfer function is obtained by using a system identification
tool in MATLAB software. After getting the pant model the
controller design and systematic experimentation is done.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows: Section II
provides a detailed description about the pressure tank set-
up utilised for this research with its schematic representation.
Section III gives the clear information about the process
modelling and the open loop data taken and its methodology
of implementation . Section IV describes the designing of the
hybrid fuzzy PID and its membership functions. Section V
describes the results obtained using the proposed controller
by using MATLAB software followed by the conclusion in
 I-V
ADC
Converter
Fig. 1. Schematic representation of the pressure process
Fig. 2. Experimental set-up of pressure process station
Section VI.
II. EXPERIMENTAL SET-UP AND DESCRIPTION
Industrial replica of pressure tank for doing research to
investigate the behavior of non-linear systems in the SISO
process approach is considered which is shown in Fig.2. This
pressure process having coupling effects and overall perfor-
mance boundaries in multivariable structures. The schematic
representation of the process station is shown in Fig. 1
The pressure process is extensively used in a visualization
process dynamic interactions and non-linearities exhibited in
the industrial scale plants in various fields like chemical in-
dustries, food process industries and pharmaceutical industries
[14]. The pressure transmitter signal from the pressure tank is
given to controller via DAQ in which the analog signal is
transformed into the digital signal by analog to the digital
(A/D) converter. Then the real-time value is given to the
personal computer where values are compared and once back
these computed values are given to process through DAQ. The
output from the controller is given to the system to carry out
a single operation. The piezoelectric transmitter available on
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the tank measures the change of pressure and send back to the
controller continuously.
Control valve work as a final control element to control the
pressure inside the tank by changing the valve opening. Data
Acquisition Card is used to convert the analog signal to digital
and vice versa. There is a relief valve present in the process
in order to removes the excess pressure exerted by the tank.
This prototype is entirely functioning in the industrial standard
mode of communication to find the process dead time, latency
present in the communication.
III. SYSTEM MODELLING
Open loop response data will be collected from the process
by running the plant with step response input alone. Then
those data will be given to the system identification toolbox
in MATLAB Simulink which will generate the desired model
of the process in the PC which is connected to the pressure
process station and save the data will be converted as model
transfer function. The process model transfer function obtained
for the pressure process using System Identification Toolbox is
given by
0.05574e− 10
G(s) = (1)
s + 1.163
A. The Characteristics of P, I, D Controllers
Formulation of the controller in initial industrial era uses
normal ON-OFF controller resembles is like conventional pro-
portional controller which produces more steady state error. On
the other hand integral controller will remove the steady-state
error occurred in the process but it make the process sluggish
so the derivative controller gives the improved stability of
the process. But using these controllers individually make
the process less stable and more prone to external noises so
combination of all these evolved [15], [16]. The proposed
hybrid controller have classical PID and Fuzzy PID control
which is shown in Fig. 3.
Individual functions performed by P,I,D controller is dis-
cussed below for further understanding.
 TABLE I
u(s) F UZZY LINGUISTIC VARIABLES
y(s)
Gp
r(s) NB Negative Big
Fuzzy PID NS Negative Small
+
- N Negative
__
dKp dKi dKd Z Zero
dt
P Positive
Fuzzy Tuner PS Positive Small

Knowledge Base

Fig. 3. Block diagram of hybrid type fuzzy PID controller

Data Base

Decision Making
e(k)

Defuzzification
Fuzzification

Unit
E
e(k) Ke α e(k)
Rule Base

Fuzzy Logic U u
+
Controller +
E Fig. 5. Fuzzy logic inference system
e(k) Kd βʃ

Fig. 4. The Fuzzy PID controller structure base which computes the error and rate of change of error
(crisp inputs and crisp output) is shown in Fig. 5.
The linguistic rule bases for the error (E) and change
- Proportional - Takes the control action by passing the er-
of error (ΔE) for obtaining the PID controller parameters
ror signal through the gain factor with it’s corresponding
(ΔKp ),(ΔKi ),(ΔKd ) is given in the below Tables II. From
rate
these tables probability of obtaining these controller parame-
- Integral - Minimizes the steady state error by lower
ters will become more converged and optimised values.
frequency compensation using the integrator.
Based on the certain functions of actuating error in the
- Derivative - It enhances the transient response by high
process combining of conventional PID and fuzzy PID will
frequency compensation.
be done in this paper. Here intelligent switching mechanism
The standard PID controller form will be given as is added over the controller combination to make the decision
 1  based on the priority of two the controllers. Those priorities are
GP ID (s) = Kp 1 + + Td s (2)
Ti s fuzzy fundamental sets and conventional PID. The Structure
where of fuzzy tuned PID controller is shown in Fig.7.
- Kp is the proportional gain V. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
- Ti is the integral time constant This section presents the experimental results of hybrid
- Td is the derivative time constant Fuzzy PID control of the pressure process plant. The first
- Ki is the integral gain part of the section shows the MATLAB simulink block of
- Kd is the derivative gain the controller designed. The Matlab simulation model of the
The final values of fuzzy PID controller parameters proposed intelligent hybrid PID controller is shown in Fig.
(kp , ki , kd ,) of the above controller structure will be given as 8. While the second part compares the different PID con-
troller approaches with real-time results of the implemented
kp = Kp + dKP controllers. In Fig. 9 open loop response data obtained for
developing the model of the pressure process plant is shown. In
ki = Ki + dKP i
the open loop experimentation the desired set-point pressure is
kd = Kd + dKd given at 40bar. From this figure the plant data will be exported
IV. HYBRID FUZZY PID CONTROL
In the hybrid controller design two inputs were given TABLE II
RULE BASE FOR FUZZY LINGUISTIC SET
namely classical error (e(k)) and rate of change of error (ΔK).
This structure of the fuzzy PID controller along with its inputs ΔE
ΔKp
and rule base outputs is shown in Fig. 4. Input and output fuzzy N Z P
N NB NS Z
sets obtained by using triangle membership functions in this E Z NB NB NS
approach. The linguistic rule base for the fuzzy systems are P NS Z PS
given in Table I.
The fuzzy PID controller control surface created in Fuzzy ΔE
ΔKi
N Z P
toolbox for the rule base used is given in Fig. 6 and centre of N NB NS NS
gravity defuzzification method is selected to obtain the crisp E Z NS Z PS
set. The internal structure of fuzzy controller with knowledge P Z PS PB

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 ΔE
ΔKd
N Z P
N NB NB NS
E Z Z Z PS
P Z PS PS

Fig. 9. Open loop response of the pressure process

Fig. 6. The fuzzy PID controller surface structure

to text file to the workspace in order to export the same for

the system identification toolbox.
Fig. 10 shows the step responses of the conventional PID,
Fuzzy and hybrid control structure. This is the response ob-
tained for the first order process followed by the corresponding
controller output shown in Fig. 11. From this we can clearly
seen that conventional controllers showing high overshoot
which may leads to the deterioration of the final control Fig. 10. First order step responses of all controllers
element.
Further the controller designed is also considered for second
order system mentioned in equation (3) and their respective
step response and controller response were given in Fig. 12
and Fig.13 respectively.

Fig. 11. First order output responses of the controllers

Fig. 7. The structure of fuzzy PID controller

TABLE III
C ONTROLLER PARAMETERS FOR VARIOUS ORDER

System order
Controller Parameters
First Second
Kp 2 0.03
Ki 0.23 0.016
Kd 0.027 1.3
α 0.047 4.39
β 0.19 1.13
Fig. 8. Hybrid Fuzzy PID Controller implementation in MATLAB

132

Fig. 12. Second order step responses of all controllers
Fig. 13. Second order output responses of the controllers
0.9e−0.2s
G(s) = (3)
s2 + 3s + 2
For the same the controller parameters for the designed
controllers for the industrial set-up utilised for this research
were given in Table III below.
VI. CONCLUSION
In this work, the model is obtained for a hybrid intelligent
controller for improving the stability of the pressure process
station. Performance analysis is done for PID, Fuzzy PID, and
Hybrid fuzzy PID controller. From the performance indices
the rise time is almost same for all the controllers, overshoot
is reduced to zero for fuzzy and hybrid fuzzy. The hybrid
controller gives reduced settling time better than other con-
trollers. This controller can be implemented in real time and
the response can be analysed. Further, this hybrid controllers
can be combined with the model-based controllers for a better
response. In future optimising the hybrid fuzzy PID controller
parameters with set-point weighted method will be considered
in order to reduce the overshoot and convergence rate.
VII. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors would like to thank our Management, Direc-
tor (Academics), Principal of Sri Ramakrishna Engineering
College, for supporting us with the infrastructure to carry out
133
the research work. The authors also like to thank Dr. Kishore
Bingi for his invaluable time and suggestions.
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