IEEE - 31661
Concentration Control of CSTR Through Fractional
Order PID Controller by Using Soft Techniques
Abhishek Singh
M.Tech Student
Department of Electrical Engineering
National Institute of Technology, Hamirpur
Himachal Pradesh, India
E-mail: abhi.singh831989@gmail.com
Abstract— Continuous Stirred Tank Reactor (CSTR) plays a
significant role in chemical processes. The continued progress
and growth of industry has increased the need for chemical and
control integration with artificial intelligence. This paper
presents the optimal design of PID & FOPID controller based on
soft techniques i.e. Genetic Algorithm and Particle Swarm
Optimization (PSO) approach for concentration control of
isothermal continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR) model,
irrespective of the disturbances introduced in the system. The
prelim step is introducing of the mathematical model which gives
relations between state variables in the mathematical way (state
space matrix). Mathematical model is obtained from mass and
heat balances inside the chemical reactor. Time domain analysis
will show the performance of different controllers and it is
noticed that Fractional order PID controller with PSO approach
gives better result than the other techniques.
Keywords—CSTR; PID Controller; FOPID Controller; Genetic
Algorithm; Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO)
I. INTRODUCTION
During the past decades, many design strategies have been
developed to comply with regulation and transient
specifications [1]. Numerous control methods such as adaptive
control, neural control, and fuzzy control have been studied.
But, Proportional integral derivative (PID) controller is still the
most common controller in process industries because of its
simplicity & to tune less number of parameter [2]. PID
controller implementation has been recommended for the
control of processes of low to medium order. Controller tuning
is used to determine the controller parameters, which helps to
get optimum output and minimize the error of the system. It is
difficult to determine the optimal value of PID controller
parameters through conventional tuning method [3]. The
performance of PID controllers can be further improved by
proper settings of fractional-I and fractional-D actions [4]. To
get optimal result, many soft techniques have been employed to
enhance the performance of controller.
A chemical reactor contains two types of chemical
reactions: exothermic and endothermic reactions, which is
mainly used for heating and cooling of one or more than one
chemical in reactor. But for isothermal condition, temperature
is constant throughout the process i.e. heat will neither evolve
nor absorb in chemical reactor. The main task of chemical
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Dr. Veena Sharma
Associate Professor
Department of Electrical Engineering
National Institute of Technology, Hamirpur
Himachal Pradesh, India
E-mail: veenanaresh@gmail.com
engineers is to ensure that the reaction will give relevant output
with good efficiency, i.e. maximum profit and minimum cost.
A continuously stirred tank reactor (CSTR) with concentration
control transfer system is an interesting dynamic phenomenon.
Because of the immense use of CSTR in process control
industries, control engineers are taking much interest in
intelligent control mechanism to get desired result. In a CSTR,
one or more fluid reagents are introduced into a tank reactor
equipped with an impeller. The impeller is used to ensure
proper mixing of reagents, while the reactor waste is removed
from the system. The design of chemical reactor depends on
following factors:
• Size of reactor
• Nature of reagents
• Temperature of reactor
• Pressure of reactor
• Rate of chemical reaction
• Catalyst
• Stability of reactor
II. FRACTIONAL ORDER PID CONTROLLER
The PID controller algorithm have three separate
parameters; the proportional, the integral and derivative values.
The proportional gain depends on current error, the integral
gain based on the sum of recent errors, and the derivative gain
determines rate at which the error has been changing. The
performance of PID controller can be further improved by
proper settings of fractional-I and fractional-D actions [5]. In a
PIλDμ controller, besides the proportional, integral and
derivative constants, we have two more adjustable parameters:
the powers of s in integral and derivative part [6,7].
(1)
where F(s) is transfer function of Fractional Order PID
Controller. It provides robustness to the plant model against
gain variation, noise and disturbance. Hence, it possesses
better transient response as compared to integer order PID
Controller. The fractional order PID controller expands the
integer order PID controller from point to plane form as shown
in figure 1. This expansion adds more flexibility to controller
design and we can control our real world processes more
accurately as compared to integer order PID controller [8,9].
 IEEE - 31661

Chalcone is used in wide range of pharmacological

activities, such as anti-malarial, anticancer, antiprotozoal, anti-
inflammatory, antibacterial, anti-filarial, anticonvulsant and
antioxidant activities [12]. Chalcone is α,β-unsaturated ketone
containing the reactive ketoethylenic group. It is coloured
compounds because of the presence of the chromophore “-CO-
CH=CH-.” The mathematical model of this reactor comes
from mass and heat balance inside the reactor [13]. The
control objective is to keep the reacting concentration at
desired value.
Under the assumptions of constant volume, perfect mixing
inside the reactor. We can write the mass balance for species
A, B & X & energy balance for the reactor (see figure 2).

(2)
Figure 1. Expansion of PID controller from point to plane form

For design of FOPID controller, it must have following

specification: (3)

• Gain margin and phase margin is to have specified value

• Robustness to variation in the gain of the given plant (4)
• Sturdiness to high frequency noise
• It should have good output disturbance rejection where F represents volumetric flow rate, V is reactor
volume, Ko is rate constant of reaction. CAo ,CBo , & Cx are
III. CSTR PROCESS MODEL
concentration of benzaldehyde, acetophenone, & Chalcone
In a CSTR process model, one or more fluid reagents are respectively.
introduced into a tank reactor equipped with an impeller while
the reactor effluent is removed from plant. The impeller stirs TABLE I
the reagents to ensure proper mixing of reactants [10]. The Parameters of the Reactor
average time, in which a particular quantity of reagent spends
inside the tank, is governed by residence time. Chemical S.No. Parameter Value of Parameter
kinetics concept is used to determine the behavior of reaction in 1. Ko 1 mol-1 L min-1
tank reactor [11]. 2. CAo 8.5 g mol-1 L
3. CBo 9.9 g mol-1 L
Consider an isothermal irreversible synthesis process of 4. CA 6.05 g mol-1 L
Chalcone, which is an aromatic ketone can be prepared by an 5. CB 6.5 g mol-1 L
aldol condensation between a benzaldehyde and an 6. F/V 1 min-1
acetophenone in the presence of sodium hydroxide/ Ethanol as 7. CX 1 g mol-1 L
a catalyst. Benzaldehyde and acetophenone are colorless
liquid, having melting point of -26°C and 20°C respectively. Steady-state analysis means that all derivatives with
The reaction mixture is heated inside reactor at 80°C, and then
after stirring process, the product mixture is cooled to room respect to time are equal to zero, i.e. .
temperature. Finally, we will get yellow color substance called
The linear state space model is represented as:
Chalcone, which is used to make life saving drugs.

(5)

where the state and input variables be defined in deviation

variable form.
Three dynamic functional equations are represented as:

(6)

(7)

(8)
Figure 2. Temperature control model of CSTR

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The elements of state space A matrix is found by:
The element of state space B matrix is found by:
D = null matrix
Using reactor parameters value, we will get:
Converting the state space model to reactor process
transfer function:
Similarly, the transfer function of input flow disturbance
due to reactant A & B is:
Figure 3. Block diagram of CSTR process model
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IEEE - 31661
IV. PERFORMANCE INDICES
A performance index is a quantitative measure of the
performance of the system. The performance assessment is
usually used in research environment to minimize the value of
error between the input & desired output.
(9)
A. Integral Absolute Error (IAE):
Use for systems that need to suppress all errors equally.
(16)
B. Integral Square Error (ISE):
It is suitable to minimize initial large amount of errors.
(17)
(10) C. Integral Time Absolute Error (ITAE):
It is used to reduce the initial large amount of error to, as
well as to diminish error occurring later in response.
(18)
(11)
D. Integral Time Square Error (ITSE):
(12) It is used for systems where persistent large errors are
problematic.
(19)
V. GENETIC ALGORITHM
Genetic Algorithm (GA) is a class of stochastic global
search method that mimics the process of natural evolution. It
is an optimization technique introduced by John Holland, one
of the founders of evolutionary computation [14]. The
continuing performance improvement of computational
systems has made them attractive for optimize result. The
genetic algorithm starts with no knowledge of the correct
solution and depends entirely on reactions from its
environment and evolution operators such as reproduction,
crossover and mutation to get the best solution.
Genetic Algorithm is search and optimization techniques
(13) inspired by two biological principles: the process of “natural
selection” and the mechanics of “natural genetics”. GA
examines not just one potential solution to a problem but a set
of potential solutions, known as population. The potential
solution in the population is called chromosomes. In each
(14) generation, the fitness of every individual in the population is
assessed, multiple individuals are selected from the current
population (based on their fitness value), and modified to form
(15) a new population. The algorithm terminates when either a
maximum number of generations has been produced, or an
acceptable fitness level has been reached for the population
[15]. The evolution operators of GA are:
A. Reproduction:
During the reproduction phase the fitness value of each
chromosome is evaluated. All selection methods are depends
on the same principal that is giving fitter chromosomes a
larger probability of selection.
B. Crossover:
The crossover operation swaps certain parts of the two
selected strings in a bid to take the good parts of old
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 IEEE - 31661
chromosomes and create better new ones. A probability of 0%
means that the offspring will be exact replicas of their parents,
where as 100% means that each generation will be composed
of entirely new offspring.
C. Mutation:
Using selection and crossover on their own will produce
large amount of different strings. However, there are two
main problems with this:
 Because of the initial population, there may not be
enough diversity in the initial strings to ensure the
Genetic Algorithm searches the entire problem space.
 The Genetic Algorithm may converge on sub-
optimum strings due to a poor choice of initial
population.
These problems may be overcome by the introduction of a
mutation operator. Mutation is the occasional random
alteration of a value of a string position. The mutation rate is
normally low because a high probability of mutation would
destroy fit strings and degenerate the genetic algorithm into a
random search. The process of genetic algorithm is
summarized in figure 4.
Figure 4. Flow chart of Genetic Algorithm
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VI. PARTICLE SWARM OPTIMIZATION
Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) is a population-based
evolutionary computational technique, used to determine the
global optimum value of objective function. PSO is based on
observations of the social behavior of animals such as bird
flocking, fish schooling and swarm theory, which is originally
proposed by Kennedy and Eberhart in [16]. In the PSO
algorithm, instead of using evolutionary operator: mutation
and crossover to manipulate algorithms, a flock of particles are
put into the d-dimensional Search space with randomly chosen
velocities and positions knowing their best values.
The swarm is initialized with a population of random
solutions. Each particle in the swarm is a distinct possible set
of the unknown parameters to be optimized. Each particle
adjusts its flying toward a potential area according to its own
flying experience and shares information among particles [17].
The goal is to efficiently search the solution space by
swarming the particles toward the best fitting solution
encountered in previous iterations with the intention to get
optimum solution through the course of the process.
Figure 5. Flow chart of Particle Swarm Optimization
In PSO, a swarm consists of N particles moving around in
a d-dimensional search space [18]. Each particle is initialized
with a random position and a random velocity, and modifies
its flying based on its own and companions experience at
every iteration. The ith particle is represented as:
(20)
In the d-dimensional space, the local best position of the ith
particle is represented as:
(21)
The modified velocity and position of each particle can be
calculated using these Formulas:
 IEEE - 31661

Figure 8 shows that PSO tuned controllers give best

(22)
(23)
where W represents inertia weight factor, R1 & R2 are
random number, C1 & C2 are acceleration constant of local
best position and global best position respectively.
response as compared to other techniques, which we discussed
earlier in this paper. Through PSO tuned FOPID controller,
system takes 0.321 min to achieve steady state and have peak
overshoot of 3.80 %. For good result, response should have
less overshoot and achieves steady state in quick time. The
PSO parameters to tune CSTR model are: Size of swarm=100,
iteration=100 and ITAE as fitness function.

VII. RESULTS & DISCUSSION

This section presents the tuning of CSTR process model
through different techniques.

Figure 8. Tuning of CSTR Model using PSO technique

TABLE II
Figure 6. Tuning of CSTR Model using Zeigler-Nichols Method Comparison of various tuning methods for CSTR Model

Zeigler-Nichols method is a well known conventional Tuning Rise Peak Peak Settling
technique, which have less complexity. From figure 6, system Techniques Time time Overshoot time
achieves steady state after 3.35 min and have peak overshoot (min) (min) (%) (min)
of 134.6 %. Z-N 0.052 2.346 134.65 3.358
Method
The response of CSTR Model using GA having Genetic 0.106 0.268 25.39 1.204
parameters: Population size=100, iteration=100 and ITAE as tuned PID
fitness function (see figure 7). Through genetic algorithm, PSO tuned 0.107 0.271 25.14 1.164
system takes 1.204 min through PID controller and 0.368 min PID
through FOPID controller to achieve steady state. Genetic 0.135 0.275 5.15 0.368
tuned FOPID
PSO tuned 0.136 0.276 3.80 0.321
FOPID
VIII. CONCLUSIONS
This research explains a design of PID & Fractional order
PID (FOPID) controller by using Genetic Algorithm & PSO
technique to control the product concentration of isothermal
CSTR process model. Time response analysis shows that
FOPID controller with PSO provides a good result as
compared to conventional PID controller. The demerit of a
single stage CSTR with conventional tuning method is that it
can be relatively wasteful on product during start of reaction.
FOPID controller with soft techniques shows satisfactory
result to achieve steady state in short time. Because of the
importance of soft techniques in control industries, researchers
are taking more interest in this field.
Figure 7. Tuning of CSTR Model using Genetic Algorithm

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 IEEE - 31661
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