Control of a distillation column by type-2 and type-1 fuzzy logic PID controllers

The aim of this paper is to develop a type-1 and a type-2 fuzzy logic PID controller (type-1 FLC and type-2 FLC, respectively) for the control of a binary distillation column, the mathematical model of which is characterized by both high nonlinearities and parameter uncertainties. Attention was focused on the tuning procedure proposed by the authors and representing a development of the original Jantzen [1] method for type-1 and type-2 fuzzy controllers, in particular including input type-2 Gaussian membership functions. A theoretical explanation of the differences in fuzzy controller performance was in fact provided in the light of simulation results. The performance of a type-1 FLC was then compared in simulation with the one of type-2 FLC. All the simulation results confirmed the robustness and the effective control action of each fuzzy controller, with evident advantages for the type-2 FLC.     

Genetic learning and performance evaluation of interval type-2 fuzzy logic controllers

Type-2 fuzzy sets, which are characterized by membership functions (MFs) that are themselves fuzzy, have been attracting interest. This paper focuses on advancing the understanding of interval type-2 fuzzy logic controllers (FLCs). First, a type-2 FLC is evolved using Genetic Algorithms (GAs). The type-2 FLC is then compared with another three GA evolved type-1 FLCs that have different design parameters. The objective is to examine the amount by which the extra degrees of freedom provided by antecedent type-2 fuzzy sets is able to improve the control performance. Experimental results show that better control can be achieved using a type-2 FLC with fewer fuzzy sets/rules so one benefit of type-2 FLC is a lower trade-off between modeling accuracy and interpretability.     

Type-2 FLCs: A New Generation of Fuzzy Controllers

Type-1 fuzzy logic controllers (FLCs) have been applied to date with great success to many different applications. However, for dynamic unstructured environments and many real-world applications, there is a need to cope with large amounts of uncertainties. The traditional type-1 FLC using crisp type-1 fuzzy sets cannot directly handle such uncertainties. A type-2 FLC using type-2 fuzzy sets can handle such uncertainties to produce a better performance. Hence, type-2 FLCs will have the potential to overcome the limitations of type-1 FLCs and produce a new generation of fuzzy controllers with improved performance for many applications, which require handling high levels of uncertainty. This paper introduces briefly the interval type-2 FLC and its benefits. We also present briefly the type-2 FLC application to three challenging domains: industrial control, mobile robots control and ambient intelligent environments control     

基于FPSO的电力巡检机器人的广义二型模糊逻辑控制

针对电力巡检机器人(Power-line inspection robot, PLIR)的平衡调节问题, 设计了广义二型模糊逻辑控制器(General type-2 fuzzy logic controller, GT2FLC); 针对GT2FLC中隶属函数参数难以确定的问题, 通过模糊粒子群(Fuzzy particle swarm optimization, FPSO)算法来优化隶属函数参数. 将GT2FLC的控制性能与区间二型模糊逻辑控制器(Interval type-2 fuzzy logic controller, IT2FLC)和一型模糊逻辑控制器(Type-1 fuzzy logic controller, T1FLC) 的控制性能进行对比. 除此之外, 还考虑了外部干扰对三种控制器控制效果的影响. 仿真结果表明, GT2FLC具有更好的性能和处理不确定性的能力.     

基于改进QPSO的两轮移动机器人区间二型模糊逻辑控制

以两轮移动机器人(TWMR)为对象,针对机器人的非线性模型分别设计控制机器人平衡和位置的区间二型模糊逻辑控制器(IT2 FLC).针对区间二型模糊规则中参数难以设定的问题,通过改进的量子粒子群算法(LTQPSO)优化区间二型模糊集参数,并给出优化算法的流程图.针对区间二型模糊逻辑控制器和一型模糊逻辑控制器(T1 FLC)对平衡和位置的控制效果进行对比.进一步考虑质量不确定和位置扰动对两种控制器控制效果的影响.仿真结果表明,IT2 FLC可以有效地达到设定的控制目标,与T1 FLC相比,IT2 FLC拥有更好的处理不确定性的能力以及更强的抗扰动能力.     

Type-2 fuzzy control for a flexible-joint robot using voltage control strategy

Type-1 fuzzy sets cannot fully handle the uncertainties. To overcome the problem, type-2 fuzzy sets have been proposed. The novelty of this paper is using interval type-2 fuzzy logic controller (IT2FLC) to control a flexible-joint robot with voltage control strategy. In order to take into account the whole robotic system including the dynamics of actuators and the robot manipulator, the voltages of motors are used as inputs of the system. To highlight the capabilities of the control system, a flexible joint robot which is highly nonlinear, heavily coupled and uncertain is used. In addition, to improve the control performance, the parameters of the primary membership functions of IT2FLC are optimized using particle swarm optimization (PSO). A comparative study between the proposed IT2FLC and type-1 fuzzy logic controller (T1FLC) is presented to better assess their respective performance in presence of external disturbance and unmodelled dynamics. Stability analysis is presented and the effectiveness of the proposed control approach is demonstrated by simulations using a two-link flexible-joint robot driven by permanent magnet direct current motors. Simulation results show the superiority of the IT2FLC over the T1FLC in terms of accuracy, robustness and interpretability.     

A comparative experimental study of type-1/type-2 fuzzy cascade controller based on genetic algorithms and particle swarm optimization

In this study, we introduce the design methodology of an optimized fuzzy controller with the aid of particle swarm optimization (PSO) for ball and beam system.The ball and beam system is a well-known control engineering experimental setup which consists of servo motor, beam and ball. This system exhibits a number of interesting and challenging properties when being considered from the control perspective. The ball and beam system determines the position of ball through the control of a servo motor. The displacement change of the position of ball leads to the change of the angle of the beam which determines the position angle of a servo motor.The fixed membership function design of type-1 based fuzzy logic controller (FLC) leads to the difficulty of rule-based control design when representing linguistic nature of knowledge. In type-2 FLC as the expanded type of type-1 FL, we can effectively improve the control characteristic by using the footprint of uncertainty (FOU) of the membership functions. Type-2 FLC exhibits some robustness when compared with type-1 FLC.Through computer simulation as well as real-world experiment, we apply optimized type-2 fuzzy cascade controllers based on PSO to ball and beam system. To evaluate performance of each controller, we consider controller characteristic parameters such as maximum overshoot, delay time, rise time, settling time, and a steady-state error. In the sequel, the optimized fuzzy cascade controller is realized and also experimented with through running two detailed comparative studies including type-1/type-2 fuzzy controller and genetic algorithms/particle swarm optimization.     

A hierarchical type-2 fuzzy logic control architecture for autonomous mobile robots

Autonomous mobile robots navigating in changing and dynamic unstructured environments like the outdoor environments need to cope with large amounts of uncertainties that are inherent of natural environments. The traditional type-1 fuzzy logic controller (FLC) using precise type-1 fuzzy sets cannot fully handle such uncertainties. A type-2 FLC using type-2 fuzzy sets can handle such uncertainties to produce a better performance. In this paper, we present a novel reactive control architecture for autonomous mobile robots that is based on type-2 FLC to implement the basic navigation behaviors and the coordination between these behaviors to produce a type-2 hierarchical FLC. In our experiments, we implemented this type-2 architecture in different types of mobile robots navigating in indoor and outdoor unstructured and challenging environments. The type-2-based control system dealt with the uncertainties facing mobile robots in unstructured environments and resulted in a very good performance that outperformed the type-1-based control system while achieving a significant rule reduction compared to the type-1 system.     

Design of interval type-2 fuzzy sliding-mode controller

In this paper, an interval type-2 fuzzy sliding-mode controller (IT2FSMC) is proposed for linear and nonlinear systems. The proposed IT2FSMC is a combination of the interval type-2 fuzzy logic control (IT2FLC) and the sliding-mode control (SMC) which inherits the benefits of these two methods. The objective of the controller is to allow the system to move to the sliding surface and remain in on it so as to ensure the asymptotic stability of the closed-loop system. The Lyapunov stability method is adopted to verify the stability of the interval type-2 fuzzy sliding-mode controller system. The design procedure of the IT2FSMC is explored in detail. A typical second order linear interval system with 50% parameter variations, an inverted pendulum with variation of pole characteristics, and a Duffing forced oscillation with uncertainty and disturbance are adopted to illustrate the validity of the proposed method. The simulation results show that the IT2FSMC achieves the best tracking performance in comparison with the type-1 Fuzzy logic controller (T1FLC), the IT2FLC, and the type-1 fuzzy sliding-mode controller (T1FSMC).     

Type-2 fuzzy multi-intersection traffic signal control with differential evolution optimization

This paper proposes a multi-agent type-2 fuzzy logic control (FLC) method optimized by differential evolution (DE) for multi-intersection traffic signal control. Type-2 fuzzy sets can deal with models’ uncertainties efficiently because of its three-dimensional membership functions, but selecting suitable parameters of membership functions and rule base is not easy. DE is adopted to decide the parameters in the type-2 fuzzy system, as it is easy to understand, simple to implement and possesses low space complexity. In order to avoid the computational complexity, the expert rule base and the parameters of membership functions (MF) are optimized by turns. An eleven-intersection traffic network is studied in which each intersection is governed by the proposed controller. A secondary layer controller is set in every intersection to select the proper phase sequence. Furthermore, the communication among the adjacent intersections is implemented using multi-agent system. Simulation experiments are designed to compare communicative type-2 FLC optimized by DE with type-1 FLC, fixed-time signal control, etc. Experimental results indicate that our proposed method can enhance the vehicular throughput rate and reduce delay, queue length and parking rate efficiently.     

Optimization of interval type-2 fuzzy logic controllers using evolutionary algorithms

A method for designing optimal interval type-2 fuzzy logic controllers using evolutionary algorithms is presented in this paper. Interval type-2 fuzzy controllers can outperform conventional type-1 fuzzy controllers when the problem has a high degree of uncertainty. However, designing interval type-2 fuzzy controllers is more difficult because there are more parameters involved. In this paper, interval type-2 fuzzy systems are approximated with the average of two type-1 fuzzy systems, which has been shown to give good results in control if the type-1 fuzzy systems can be obtained appropriately. An evolutionary algorithm is applied to find the optimal interval type-2 fuzzy system as mentioned above. The human evolutionary model is applied for optimizing the interval type-2 fuzzy controller for a particular non-linear plant and results are compared against an optimal type-1 fuzzy controller. A comparative study of simulation results of the type-2 and type-1 fuzzy controllers, under different noise levels, is also presented. Simulation results show that interval type-2 fuzzy controllers obtained with the evolutionary algorithm outperform type-1 fuzzy controllers.     

Increasing the reactant conversion through induced oscillations in a continuous stirred tank reactor by using PI control

We report a strategy to increase the reactant conversion in a continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR) to produce propylene glycol through induced oscillations generated by two controllers PI₁ and PI₂ that manipulate the reactor outlet flow and the coolant flow rate respectively. It is shown that an adequate parameter choice for the PI controllers allows one to derive sustained oscillations in the concentrations and reactor temperature, which in turn allows increasing the propylene glycol production. For a suitable choice of the PI₁ and PI₂ controller parameters, we use a complete reactor model that provides with physically feasible parameters. The issues of external disturbance rejection, self-oscillations and stability have also been discussed. The analytical calculations are verified by means of full numerical simulations.     

基于量子粒子群的斜坡上两轮移动机器人的广义二型模糊控制

两轮移动机器人(2WMR)本身具有多变量和非线性等特征,从而使其控制变得复杂。当2WMR在倾斜的表面上移动时,控制问题变得更加复杂。针对2WMR的非线性模型,设计2WMR的广义二型模糊逻辑平衡控制器和位置控制器。针对广义二型模糊逻辑控制器(GT2FLC)中前、后件中参数难以设定的问题,通过量子粒子群算法(QPSO)优化隶属函数中的参数。针对GT2FLC和区间二型模糊逻辑控制器(IT2FLC)在不同斜面上对移动2WMR的平衡和位置控制的效果进行进一步的对比分析,并干扰对控制效果的影响。仿真结果表明,GT2FLC具有更好的抗干扰能力。     

Fault-tolerant Control for Nonlinear Systems with Multiple Intermittent Faults and Time-varying Delays

This study investigates a new fault-tolerant control method for uncertain nonlinear systems with multiple intermittent faults and time-varying delays. The considered intermittent faults appear in sensors and actuators simultaneously. A Markov chain is used to describe the random occurrence and disappearance of intermittent faults. The uncertain nonlinear system with intermittent faults is augmented as a Markovian jump system. By using H-infinity control theory and linear matrix inequality (LMI), we design fault tolerant controllers to make augmented Markovian jump system work steadily. Several sufficient conditions for stochastic stability with given H-infinity performance index and the existence of output-feedback controllers are derived. The effectiveness of the proposed fault-tolerant method is validated by a continuously stirred tank reactor (CSTR).     

Fuzzy logic control of a reverse flow reactor for catalytic oxidation of ventilation air methane

Fuzzy logic controllers of type-1 and type-2 were implemented to deal with the high nonlinearities and uncertainties in operation of a reverse flow reactor (RFR) for catalytic oxidation of ventilation air methane (VAM). The results indicated that the fuzzy logic controller is distinctly superior to the traditional logic-based controller and works well under the conditions with high nonlinearities and uncertainties. Owing to the robustness of RFR and particular control aim of regulating bed temperature within a relatively broad range, a fuzzy logic controller of type-1 is sufficient to cope with the uncertainty brought by the extensive variation of VAM concentration.     

Robust controller design for a class of nonlinear uncertain chemical processes

This article considers the issue of designing robust controllers for single-input/single-output nonlinear chemical processes whose uncertainties satisfy the so-called generalized matching condition. The nominal system (mathematical model) is assumed to be input–output linearizable and the only assumption on uncertainties is that they are bounded. A design methodology of combining the techniques of the differential geometric feedback linearization, the sliding mode control strategy and the adaptive state feedback is presented. Based on the nominal system and the related bounds of uncertainties, a hybrid nonlinear controller, which is more practicable and easily implemented than many other existing ones in the literature, is proposed. A Lyapunov-based approach is utilized to guarantee the robust stability and behavior of the closed-loop system. For demonstrating the effectiveness and applicability of the proposed scheme, we applied it to the control of a continuously stirred tank reactor (CSTR) in the presence of uncertainties including unmodeled side reaction, measuring error, and/or extra unmeasured disturbances. The potential use of a sliding observer along with the proposed scheme is also investigated in this work. Extensive simulation results reveal that the proposed scheme appears to be a practical and promising approach to the robust control of nonlinear uncertain chemical processes.     

Fault tolerant control based on neural network interval type-2 fuzzy sliding mode controller for octorotor UAV

In this paper, a robust controller for a six degrees of freedom (6 DOF) octorotor helicopter control is proposed in presence of actuator and sensor faults. Neural networks (NN), interval type-2 fuzzy logic control (IT2FLC) approach and sliding mode control (SMC) technique are used to design a controller, named fault tolerant neural network interval type-2 fuzzy sliding mode controller (FTNNIT2FSMC), for each subsystem of the octorotor helicopter. The proposed control scheme allows avoiding difficult modeling, attenuating the chattering effect of the SMC, reducing the number of rules for the fuzzy controller, and guaranteeing the stability and the robustness of the system. The simulation results show that the FTNNIT2FSMC can greatly alleviate the chattering effect, tracking well in presence of actuator and sensor faults.     

Interval Type-2 Fuzzy Hierarchical Adaptive Cruise Following-Control for Intelligent Vehicles

Intelligent vehicles can effectively improve traffic congestion and road traffic safety. Adaptive cruise following-control (ACFC) is a vital part of intelligent vehicles. In this paper, a new hierarchical vehicle-following control strategy is presented by synthesizing the variable time headway model, type-2 fuzzy control, feedforward + fuzzy proportion integration (PI) feedback (F+FPIF) control, and inverse longitudinal dynamics model of vehicles. Firstly, a traditional variable time headway model is improved considering the acceleration of the lead car. Secondly, an interval type-2 fuzzy logic controller (IT2 FLC) is designed for the upper structure of the ACFC system to simulate the driver’s operating habits. To reduce the nonlinear influence and improve the tracking accuracy for the desired acceleration, the control strategy of F+FPIF is given for the lower control structure. Thirdly, the lower control method proposed in this paper is compared with the fuzzy PI control and the traditional method (no lower controller for tracking desired acceleration) separately. Meanwhile, the proportion integration differentiation (PID), linear quadratic regulator (LQR), subsection function control (SFC) and type-1 fuzzy logic control (T1 FLC) are respectively compared with the IT2 FLC in control performance under different scenes. Finally, the simulation results show the effectiveness of IT2 FLC for the upper structure and F+FPIF control for the lower structure.      

Type-2 Fuzzy Logic Control of a Flexible-Joint Manipulator

A type-2 fuzzy logic controller (FLC) is proposed in this article for robot manipulators with joint elasticity and structured and unstructured dynamical uncertainties. The proposed controller is based on a sliding mode control strategy. To enhance its real-time performance, simplified interval fuzzy sets are used. The efficiency of the control scheme is further enhanced by using computationally inexpensive input signals independently of the noisy torque and acceleration signals, and by adopting a trade off strategy between the manipulator’s position and the actuators’ internal stability. The controller is validated through a set of numerical experiments and by comparing it against its type-1 counterpart. It is shown through these experiments the higher performance of the type-2 FLC in compensating for larger magnitudes of uncertainties with severe nonlinearities. This work was partially supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and the Canadian Microelectronics Corporation (CMC).     

Adaptive control of a CSTR with a neural network model

An adaptive control algorithm with a neural network model, previously proposed in the literature for the control of mechanical manipulators, is applied to a CSTR (Continuous Stirred Tank Reactor). The neural network model uses either radial Gaussian or “Mexican hat” wavelets as basis functions. This work shows that the addition of linear functions to the networks significantly improves the error convergence when the CSTR is operated for long periods of time in a neighborhood of one operating point, a common scenario in chemical process control. Then, a quantitative comparative study based on output errors and control efforts is conducted where adaptive controllers using wavelets or Gaussian basis functions and PID controllers (IMC tuning with fixed parameters and self tuning PID) are compared. From this comparative study, the practicality and advantages of the adaptive controllers over fixed or adaptive PID control is assessed.