2018 5th International Conference on Control, Decision Thessaloniki, Greece

and Information Technologies (CoDIT’18) April 10-13, 2018

Boiler Flow Control using Optimal Fuzzy Supervisory PID

Controller
R. BENDIB, N. BATOUT

Abstract— Steam generation systems are a crucial part of

most power plants. Therefore, boiler control is an important
problem for power plants that are frequently changing load
or subject to sudden load disturbances, which are common in
current market driven electricity industry. In this paper, the
steam flow parameters of a boiler are controlled using fuzzy
supervisory PID controller and then optimized using
hierarchical genetic algorithm to find the best values of
proportional gain (Kp), integral gain (KI), derivative gain
(KD).

Keywords— boiler ; fuzzy supervisory ; hierarchical genetic

algorithm ; PID ; genetic fuzzy controls
I. INTRODUCTION
Boilers were a major part of the Industrial Revolution
beginning about 1700. They are major consumers of industry
and building energy consumption today. They are used for
power generation, process heat (refineries, petrochemicals,
paper mills, tire manufacturing …) and heating [1].
The function of a boiler is to deliver steam of a given
quality (temperature and pressure) either to a single user, such
as a steam turbine, or to a network of many users. Then, a
properly functioning boiler must satisfy the following basic
requirements:
1) The ratio of air to fuel must be carefully controlled in
order to obtain good, safe, and efficient combustion.
2) The level of water in the drum must be controlled at the
desired level in order to prevent overheating of drum
components or flooding of steam lines.
3) A desired steam pressure must be maintained at the
outlet of the drum despite variations in the quantity of steam
demanded by users [2].
The following figure (Fig 1) shows the main component of a
typical boiler. The main parameters that affect the operation of
boiler is the water flow
. which membership is a matter of degree [5].
R. BENDIB is with the Department of Petrochemical and Process
Engineering, University of 20 Aout 1955 Skikda, Algeria and Laboratory of
signals and systems IGEE-Boumerdes Algeria. e-mail: r.bendib@ univ-
skikda.dz.
N. BATOUT is with the Department of Petrochemical and Process
Engineering, University of 20 Aout 1955 Skikda, Algeria (e-mail:
batoutnoual@yahoo.fr).
Fig.1. Schematic picture of an industrial drum boiler
The performance of a fuzzy logic controller depends on its
control rules and membership functions. Hence, it is very
important to adjust these parameters to the process to be
controlled. A method is presented for tuning fuzzy control
parameters by genetic algorithms to make the fuzzy logic
control systems behave as closely as possible to the operator or
expert behavior in a control process [3].
In this paper, we will describe the optimization of
membership functions, its parameters and its shapes, in a fuzzy
supervisory PID controller for a boiler employing hierarchical
genetic algorithms.
II. FUZZY LOGIC
In recent years, the number and variety of fuzzy logic
applications have increased significantly. The applications
range from consumer products such as cameras, camcorders,
washing machines, and microwave ovens to industrial process
control, medical instrumentation, decision-support systems, and
portfolio selection [4].
Fuzzy logic has two different meanings. In a narrow
sense, fuzzy logic is a logical system, which is an extension of
multivalued logic. However, in a wider sense fuzzy logic (FL)
is almost synonymous with the theory of fuzzy sets, a theory
which relates to classes of objects with un-sharp boundaries in

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 A. Fuzzy logic control
Control applications are the kinds of problems for
which fuzzy logic has the greatest success and acclaim [6] A
fuzzy controller (Fig.2) is a regulating system whose modus
operandi is specified with fuzzy rules. In general it uses a
small set of rules. The measurements are processed in their
fuzzifier form, fuzzy inferences are computed, and the result is
defuzzified, that is, it is transformed back into a specific
number [7].
Fig.2. Block diagram of a fuzzy controller
B. Fuzzy supervisory control
Fuzzy Supervisory controller (Fig.3) is a multilayer
(hierarchical) controller with the supervisor at the highest
level, as shown in the next Figure. The fuzzy supervisor can
use any available data from the control system to characterize
the system’s current behavior so that it knows how to change
the controller and ultimately achieve the desired specifications.
In addition, the supervisor can be used to integrate other
information into the control decision-making process [8].
Fig.3. Representation of a Fuzzy Supervisory Control
CoDIT'18 / Thessaloniki, Greece - April 10-13, 2018
III. GENETIC ALGORITHM
A genetic algorithm (GA) is a search of optimization
algorithm based on the mechanics of natural selection and
natural genetics. Since GA is suitable to solve combinatorial
optimization problems, it can be successfully applied to
problems of loss minimum in distribution systems [9].
A. General mechanism of genetic algorithm
Typically, a genetic algorithm consists of the following
steps as it is described in Fig.4:
 Step1(Initialization):an initial population of the search
nodes is randomly generated;
 Step 2: evaluation of the fitness function. The function
value of each node is calculated according to the
fitness function (objective function);
 Step 3: genetic operations ,new search nodes are
generated randomly by examining the fitness value of
the search nodes and applying the genetic operators to
the search nodes;
 Step 4: repeat steps 2 and 3 until the algorithm
converges [10].
Fig.4. Genetic algorithm flow chart
B. Hierarchical genetic algorithm
Hierarchical genetic strategy is a new evolutionary method
which gives good computation complexity in solving global
optimization problems by using different length genotypes.
A Hierarchical Genetic Algorithm (HGA) is an algorithmic
technique of artificial intelligence that converges on a solution
at both the atomic and structural levels [11].
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IV. HIERARCHICAL GENETIC ALGORITHM CODING FOR FUZZY TABLE I. HGA parameters.
CONTROL
Membership Chromosome
The basic procedures of designing a fuzzy logic controller
Representation Real
(FLC) have been well established .The operating procedures
for these variables are usually done manually, but this often Population size 20
yields a suboptimal performance, despite some other automatic No. of Offspring 1
tuning schemes . Crossover One point crossover
Crossover rate 0.9
Considering that the main attribute of the HGA is its Mutation Random mutation
ability to solve the topological structure of an unknown Mutation rate 0.01
system, then the problem of determining the fuzzy
Selection Roulette wheel selection
membership functions and rules could also fall into this
category.
The parameters of the fuzzy system are:
This approach has a number of advantages.
e ϵ [-0.01,0.01] and Δe ϵ [-0.1,0.1];
 An optimal, and the least, number of membership The range of “KP” is [10;16] and “KI” is
functions and rules is obtained; [5;6.5] and “KD” [1;2].
 No prefixed fuzzy structure is necessary; Minimum inference engine (Mamdani
inference );
 Simpler implementing procedures and less cost are Center average defuzzifier.
involved; The optimal rules for the inference table are indicated in
 It meets design criteria that can be multi-objective and Table 2.
constrained.
 The conceptual idea is to have an automatic and TABLE II. Fuzzy rules for KP , KI and KD
intelligent scheme to tune the fuzzy membership
functions and rules, in which the closed-loop fuzzy
Δe Δe Δe
control strategy remains unchanged. [12].
V. PROCESS DESCRIPTION D1 D2 D1 D2 D1 D2
A boiler of a chemical plant is taken as a case study and the
E1 U2 U2 E1 V2 V2 E1 W1 W2
temperature control of the boiler is achieved using fuzzy
supervisory controller.
U2 U1 V2 V1 W2 W1
The boiler is mathematically modeled using
experimental data available and its transfer function is given as U2 U2 V1 V2 W1 W2
[13]:

The best generation is shown in Fig.5. , and the fitness

function value of the best generation is illustrated in Fig.6.

VI. SIMULATION AND RESULTS

The objective in this paper is to minimize the error which
represents the difference between the response of our system
and the set point. Hence the fitness function is defined as
follow:

The HGA parameters are indicated in Table 1 Fig.5. The best generation.

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 desirable performance requires the controller to have the
smallest possible value for the rise time, overshoot and the
settling time are investigated

Fig.6. Fitness function for the 13the generation

The optimum number and shape of the fuzzy inputs and

outputs are shown in Fig.7. and Fig 8 Fig.9. System responses.

VII. CONCLUSION
The simulation results demonstrate the efficiency of Genetic
Algorithms to be powerful search tools that can reduce the
time and effort involved in designing controllers. They can
quickly find close to optimal solutions and if set-up well can
avoid local optima

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Fig.7. The triangular inputs membership functions. problem”, IFAC Conference on advances in PID control, Brescla(Italy),
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(c) Kd [13] Rahul Malhotra1, Rajinder Sodhi “ Boiler Flow control using PID and
fuzzy logic ‘’ IJCSET | July 2011 | Vol 1, Issue 6,315-319
Fig.8. The triangular outputs membership functions

The responses that correspond the obtained optimum fuzzy

supervisory PI controller are shown in the Fig 9. The most

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