Predictive Control of Temperature Under
Greenhouse using LQG Strategy
Youssef EL AFOU1,2, Abdelouahad AIT MSAAD3
1
Physics Department, Faculty of sciences, Moulay Ismaïl
University, LEAB laboratory
Meknes, Morocco
& Hélioparc Pau Pyrénées 2, Avenue du
2
INRIA Non-A groupe, University of Sciences and
Technology of Lille1, LAGIS Laboratory
Lille, France
Elafou.youssef@gmail.com
3 5
École Supérieure de Technologie de Fès, Université
Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah, Route d’Imouzzer, BP
2427 Fès, Morocco
msaadabdelouahad@yahoo.fr
Abstract—In this paper, we present a simulation of the predictive
control named Linear Quadratic Gaussian (LQG) in order to
control the temperature under greenhouse. This controller
permits to estimate the gain of Kalman filter by resolving the
Riccati equation. For that, we are using Matlab software to
develop the state equation to be implemented in LabVIEW
software.
Keywords-component; Greenhouse, Automatic Control, LQG
controller, Kalman filter.
I. INTRODUCTION
T he greenhouse is a production tool for creating an
artificial microclimate for growth and development of
crops. The greenhouse grows fast using the techniques and
materials ever more varied and complex. This is why growers,
who want to remain competitive, need to maximize their
investment by controlling the conditions of production, aiming
also to control automatically the climate factors of the plant
development [1]-[3].
Plant physiology informs us about the role of temperature
in the process ensuring plant life. Temperature plays different
roles by day, while photosynthesis occurs, and during the
night, while cellular respiration occurs. The distinction
between these two types of temperature provides important
information on the evolution of plants. Alternating daily or
monthly temperature affects the rate of plant growth [4], [5].
High temperature acting on the evaporation of water cell
and leads to increase perspiration. Similarly, the temperature
beyond 25 °C and 30 °C, causes decreased sweating. Low
temperature is a contributing factor in various diseases. But it
may even be the reason for the death of the plant. The roots
are particularly sensitive to cold and same problems can
appear as 14 °C. This requires the integration of techniques of
automated temperature control [6]-[9].
978-1-4673-7894-9/15/$31.00 ©2015 IEEE
Tarik KOUSKSOU4, Mustapha MAHDAOUI5
4
Université de Pau et des Pays de l’Adour, Technopôle
Président Angot, 64053 Pau Cédex 09
Laboratoire des Sciences pour l’Ingénieur Appliquée à
la Mécanique et au Génie Electrique, France
tarik.kousksou@univ-pau.fr
LIMSI-CNRS, BP 133, 91403 Orsay Cedex, France
mustapha_mahdaoui@yahoo.fr
For this reason, our work consists in integrating the
Linear Quadratic Gaussian (LQG) algorithm to control the
temperature under greenhouse. This control strategy allows
calculating the gain of a state feedback control for the specific
purpose of reducing white noise. It combines the Linear
Quadratic controller (LQ) and a Kalman estimator, which can
be calculated independently according to the separation
principle [10]. LQ control ensures a certain robustness of the
closed loop. The Kalman filter is a recursive estimator that has
two distinct phases: Prediction phase and Update step [11].
The prediction phase uses the estimated state of the previous
time to produce an estimate of the current state. In the update
step, the observations of the current time are used to correct
the predicted state in order to obtain a more accurate estimate.
Actuators have limited operations (fully open or closed).
Come into account security reasons, environmental or inherent
limitations of sensors, limits on process variables (temperatures
and relative humidity). All this requires considering the
constraints in the design phase and implementation of the
controller for improved system performance. The synthesis of
control without taking into account the restrictions mentioned
may discard the response of the controlled system to that
desired. Therefore, predictive control takes place for such
regulation.
II. LINEAR QUADRATIC GAUSSIAN CONTROLLER (LQG)
OVERVIEW
Figure 1 shows the block diagram of LQG controller. The
application of this controller is to calculate the gain of a
feedback control condition in a particular order to reduce
white noise. The LQG controller combines LQ (Linear
Quadratic) and a Kalman estimator which can be calculated
independently depending on separation principle. We
introduce LQ on the controller for ensuring a robustness of the
closed loop [12]-[14].
LQG is a more modern technique of state space
representation for optimal dynamic regulators designer. It
helps to have good performance at control. It also carries the
white noise considerations and processes those measurements
[15]-[17].
Fig. 1. Block diagram of LQG controller.
Regulation is provided by a dynamic system capable of
keeping his behavior even in response interference. Therefore,
the performance of the control system is strongly dependent
on the gain matrix in the linear observation. To improve the
performance, it is clearly better to make the dimension and the
value of this gain matrix as large as possible. Note that the
performance depends on the adopted structure, level of
accuracy of the estimate of variance and the ability of used
actuator. The system can be described by the state space as
described in the following equation:
x(t  1)  Ax(t)  Bu(t)  w(t) (1)
y(t)  Cx(t)  (t)
Where x is the vector that contains a state of controlled
variables, u is the vector of command, w is a Gaussian white
noise detected on the output. The optimized standard criterion
allows a trade-off between a convergence time and a
consumption control:
J  Lim  y(t)  y r (t)   u(t) 2 
1 N 2 (2)
N  N t 0
Where  is the control weighting factor, N is the time
control horizon and yr (t ) represents the setpoint. It is
characterized by two important parameters: the time control
horizon and the control-weighting factor, y is the vector of
controlled variables, u is the control vector; the criterion of (2)
is minimal for the following control law:
u(t)  L(t)x(t)  r(t)
With:
L(t)     BT R(t)B BT R(t)A
1
r(t)     B R(t)B B V(t)
T 1 T (5)
V(t)   A  BL(t)   Cyr (t)
T
R(t)  A R(t 1)A  A R(t 1)B    B R(t 1)B  B R(t 1)A  C C
1
T T
T T T
Where, R is a non-negative matrix. The solution of the
algebraic Riccati equation presented in (7) plays an important
role for the stability of the LQG controller [18]. The existence
of the solution is related to the following conditions:
C1: (A, B) is controllable
C2: (C, A) is observable
The Condition C1 ensures stability of the LQG control
while the second condition C2 ensures the stability of the
estimator. The LQG control requires that all state variables are
measurable. To estimate the state vector x(t) we use a state
observer obtained by changing the representation of system
status:
ˆ  1)  Ax(t)
x(t ˆ  Bu(t)  K(t)(y(t)  Cx(t))
ˆ (8)
xˆ (t ) is the estimate for x(t ) and K a gain of
Where,
Kalman filter. It permits to estimates the state x(t  1) . This
filtering gain can be calculated from the matrixes A, C, the
two covariance matrices V and W of the Gaussian white noise
v(t) and w(t) and the initial state.
III. TEMPERATURE CONTROL UNDER GREENHOUSE BY LQG
Greenhouse is a place built based on properties ensuring the
biological life mimetic natural life while minimizing the
negative impact of external climatic conditions. Should be
noted that greenhouse must have a synthesis similar to the
atmospheric environment. The greenhouse cultivation is
evolving rapidly by requiring sophisticated techniques for
reliable control. Indeed, to achieve these objectives we will
recourse to the use of electronics (sensors, actuators,
electronic interfaces, etc.) and the computing (process
automation).
A. Experimental Device
The experimental greenhouse, where all Data were
collected, is located at the Electronic Automatic and
Biotechnology Laboratory, Faculty of Sciences, Meknes,
Morocco. It is a greenhouse chapel, which is covered with a
transparent material. The experimentation consists in setting
up a station acquisition composed of a set of sensors and
electronic devices to complete the acquisition, processing,
storage, control and monitoring of climatic parameters
(temperature, humidity, light and CO2 content. The proposed
solution utilizes a data acquisition card type PCI-6024E
controlled by a Personal Computer (PC) as illustrated in Fig.
2. This last will act as an interface between PC and the
different cards conditioning sensors, power card, protection
and signaling card [19]-[21].
(3)
(4)
(6)
(7)

Fig. 2. Schematic block diagram of acquisition.
- The actuators used to adjust the climate inside the
greenhouse.
- The weather outside is used to condition the
greenhouse climate.
- The parameters must be optimal for a normal life of the
plant.
The data acquisition system is controlled by LabVIEW
software. It allows real-time visualization. It features two sides
one before for viewing and the other for the development of
the diagram, the responses can be saved as text form [24],
[25].
B. LQG Diagram in Simulink
Fig. 3 presents the diagram developed in order to estimate
LQG parameters. This estimation is based on Kalman filter
using the correlation matrix of this filter and the order of the
measurement noise and process. Indeed, some parameters vary
within very large intervals and in this case it is not easy to find
suitable values. With this diagram in Simulink, we set these
parameters, and by iteration we send the correct values.
Fig. 3. Estimating the parameters of the LQG controller.
The Fig. 3 gives the LQG algorithm able to estimate the
inside temperature: Tin, the estimated output (Tkfe) obtained
with Kalman filter and the error and the control order (Cd)
IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Experimental device was used for the acquisition of
climatic parameters under the greenhouse. The experimental
data are used to simulate the proposed control algorithm. In
this section, we present the simulation results obtained using
the LQG controller.
A. Parameters Estimation
Simulink design optimization software works by adjusting
parameters in a Simulink model so that chosen response
signals within the system behave in a specified way. The
constraints on the behavior of the response signals and the
tuned parameters are setting within the signal constraint block.
We specify the desired response of a signal by enforcing
signal bounds or by tracking a reference signal. Constraint-
bound segments define the time-domain constraints. To
position these segments, which appear as a white shaded
region bordered by a red line, using the mouse to click and
drag segments within the signal constraint window as shown
in the Fig. 4. With this interface we can estimate some
parameters which allow us to obtain optimal values of LQG
controller, enforcing in desired trajectory. Here we computed
the gain of Kalman Filter: K=3.769 103.
Fig. 4. Parameter estimation.
B. Validation
We exploit the previous estimated parameters implemented
in LQG algorithm. The results of the simulation are shown in
Fig. 5.
The parameters of LQG algorithm are initialized as:
A= [0.9233 1; 0.0655 0]
B= [0.2734 0.1324]
C= [1 0]
 D=0
  0.05
R=1.5*[1 0; 0 1]
Fig. 5. Validation of the LQG controller.
It can be seen that the measured and simulated temperatures
under greenhouse are similar. More than that, the computed
error between both temperatures was acceptable for a time
interval of 800 s. Indeed, the command has low power. All
these observations prove the accuracy of the estimated
parameters. To improve these results we will introduce Matlab
Script to load the previous tested algorithm.
C. Matlab Script
The Matlab Script is able to bind LabVIEW with Matlab via
script. We chose Matlab script with its advantages and its
ability to extend several applications. Fig. 6 provides an
example of using Matlab script:
Fig. 6. Matlab script used in the diagram VI.
The block diagram showed in the fig. 6 presents the Math
script node integrated in LabVIEW software. Fig. 7 shows the
evolution curves of the. It’s clear that the obtained results with
LabVIEW simulation are so similar to those obtained with the
Matlab ones. Therefore, the variables were recuperated
optimally.
Fig. 7. LabVIEW front panel.
V. CONCLUSION
This paper deals with the applicability of adaptive LQG
control to the temperature under greenhouse. In the practical
implementation of the control law it was important to select a
strategy that not only gives a small output variance, but also
ensures not too large a change of the input signal. The
experiments show that the control law gives satisfactory
results. Thus, the performance of adaptive LQG control is
analysed and its efficiency is demonstrated through the quality
of results and the easy parameters tuning.
The LQG control problem is one of the most fundamental
optimal control problems. It concerns uncertain linear
greenhouse system disturbed by additive noise, having
incomplete state information (i.e. not all the state variables are
measured and available for feedback) and undergoing control
subject to quadratic costs. Moreover the solution constitutes a
linear dynamic feedback control law that is easily computed
and implemented. Finally the LQG controller is also
fundamental to the optimal temperature control of perturbed
non-linear greenhouse system.
Matlab script is a remarkable tool that enables powerful to
exploit the programs written in Matlab into LabVIEW through
its power to treat, monitor and analyze the data acquired under
LabVIEW using these programs. The real-time
implementation of this command will be implemented in the
future work.
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