Application of temperature fuzzy controller in an indirect resistance furnace

The paper presents the application results of a fuzzy controller of temperature and its rate of change in indirect resistance chamber furnaces. The method of an initial controller tuning based on the computer simulations is described, where the modelling of the furnace appears as a special problem. Further controller tuning was done based on tests performed on the real furnace. The quality of the finally-adopted controller on the real furnace is assessed by its tracking of the desired response, regulation robustness with respect to the presence of load in the furnace, as well as by a comparison with the ideal implementation of the Dahlin algorithm for classic PID control. The experimental part of the work is made using a 5 kW indirect resistance chamber furnace. # 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.