A model reference adaptive control system for the automatic control of cane feeding system in a cane sugar factory

Abstract: Cane raw sugar factory consist of a series of chemical and mechanical process. Cane feeding section, milling section, evaporator section etc are the main sections of a cane raw sugar factory. For the steady feed of cane into the milling plant it is very important to control the entire cane feeding system automatically. The manual mode of controlling may trip the entire cane feeding and milling system. This paper describes the automatic control of cane feeding section of a cane raw sugar factory through model reference adaptive control approach(MRAC). The plant model including the dynamics of kicker, leveller, fibrizor, Donnelly chute etc makes the system more complex. In order to reduce the complexity of controlling the entire system a logical control scheme is necessary. Steady feed of cane can be achieved by controlling the speed of cane carrier motor and rake elevator motor. Set point of the cane carrier and rake elevator motor control system can be varied by this logical control scheme for the steady feed of cane into the milling section. A model reference adaptive control system can be use to implement the control scheme. MRAC shows better control performance than a conventional controller. Keywords: MRAC, MIT rule, PI, PID