Intelligent controller for multiple-effect evaporator in the sugar industry

This paper proposes a control scheme to control a multiple-effect evaporator (MEE) in the sugar industry using fuzzy logic control (FLC). An algorithm using genetic algorithms (GAs) is proposed and used to automatically tune the scaling factors (SFs) and membership functions (MFs) of the FLCs. The development and tuning of the FLCs is done in simulation on a mathematical model of the MEE, which has been optimised using GA. The tuned model was then used in all simulations. Comparison of the performances of the FLCs with only SFs tuned and with both SFs and MFs tuned is given. Substantial improvement in control accuracy has been observed after tuning MFs. Compared to manual control, the proposed intelligent control scheme promises significantly better performances.