A Compact Design Approach for Plant Temperature Steady State Analysis System Using Fuzzy Logic

Abstract

The purpose of the steady state analysis of the temperature parameter is to heat the system to a specified temperature, then maintain it at that temperature in controlled manner. Fuzzy Logic Controller (FLC) is best way in which this type of precision control can be accomplished by controller. In the last decades, a lot of effort has been made in order to improve the use of environmentally friendly and renewable energy sources. In a context of small energy usage, energy harvesting takes place and thermal energy sources are one of its main energy sources because there are several unused heat sources available in the environment that may be used as renewable energy sources. To rapidly evaluate the energy potential of such thermal sources is a hard task; therefore, a way to perform this is welcome. In this work, a thermal pattern emulation system to evaluate potential thermal source in a easy way is proposed. The main characteristics of the proposed system are that it is online and remote, that is, while the thermal-source-under-test is being measured, the system is emulating it and evaluating the generated energy remotely by using wireless application protocol. The main contribution of this work was to replace the conventional Proportional Integral Derivative (PID) controller to a Fuzzy-Proportional Integral (PI) controller. In order to compare both controllers, three tests were carried out, namely: (a) step response, (b) perturbation test, (c) thermal emulation of the thermal pattern obtained from a potential thermal source: tree trucks. Experimental results show that the Fuzzy-PI controller was faster than the PID, achieving a setting time 43.26% faster, and also was more efficient with a maximum error 55% smaller than the PID.