Neural network modelling and control strategies for a pH process

The control of a pH process using neural networks is examined. The neural network as a universal approximator is used to good effect in this nonlinear problem, as is shown in the simulation results. In the modelling task, the dynamics of the process was carefully examined to determine a suitable structure for the net. In particular, a multilayer net consisting of two single hidden layers was constructed to reflect the Wiener model of the pH process. This led to much simpler training compared to similar modelling attempts by other researchers. For the control task, two schemes were simulated. In one approach, a net was used to deal with the static nonlinearity to achieve control over a wide working range. The dynamic controller used was the PID, with its parameters tuned on a relay auto-tuner. This control design was compared with the strong acid equivalent method. In the second approach, a direct model reference adaptive neural network control scheme was proposed. The training procedure uses the more efficient least squares algorithm developed by Loh and Fong.