Supervisory Fuzzy Adaptive Control of a

Binary Distillation Column

Srinivasan Santhanam, Gruduute Student
Reza Langari, Assistant Professor

I. ABSTRACT
Distillation column i s widely used in the chemical
industry for separation and has been studied extensively for improvements an composition control by
using multivariable control straiegies. The availability of process computers with higher processing
power at a lower price has led t o greater interests in
the application of advanced control techniques. Almost all of the advanced control techniques rely on
an accurate model of the process t o be controlled.
If an accurate process model is not available, then
satisfactory control cannot be achieved. Here we
present a new fuzzy adaptive technique t o adapt the
feedforward model and decoupling model in a bina y
distillation column in order to reject the feedflow disturbances affecting the distillate composition.
11.

INTRODUCTION

Some of the different advanced control techniques

used in distillation column control include internal
model control (I.M.C), optimal control, dynamic matrix control (D.M.C), feedforward control and decoupling control [l]. All of the above control techniques need an accurate model of the process to be
controlled. For a complex, non-linear, interacting
process like the distillation column, such a process
model does not exist [2] [3] [4]. If the process cannot
be usefully modeled within the framework assumed
by the theory, then satisfactory control cannot be
achieved. In addition to the model deficiency, a difficult process may also be characterized as having a
considerable amount of essential a priori information
available only in a qualitative form. These features
are a form of imprecision which prevent the theory from being used [5]. Huang and Tomizuka [SI
have used an implicit fuzzy model of the plant to
derive the control rules when an accurate model of
the plant is not available, based on the concept of
inverting the plant model. Cartwright and Thomson [7] have used a similar fuzzy model for composition control in a binary distillation column. Langari
and Tomizuka [SI have proposed a fuzzy linguistic
The authola are with the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, T X 77843, USA.

0-7803-1896-X/94 $4.00 01994 IEEE

model based feedforward control to compensate for

measurable disturbances affecting the manufacturing processes.
In this paper, we explore a binary distillation column control system in which the reflux flow is used
to control the distillate composition and the vapor
boil up rate is used to control the bottoms composition(Fig.1). Our objective is to control the distillate
composition in the presence of measurable changes
in the feedflow and interaction between the distillate
and bottom controllers. We propose a fuzzy adaptation scheme based on linguistic adaptive rules and
discuss the issues related to the design of these rules.
Next, we present the application of this technique
to a benzene-toluene binary distillation column and
review the results. We conclude the paper with an
overview of the research issues that need further exploration.
111.

FEEDFORWARD
A N D DECOUPLING
CONTROL

The feedforward model shown in Fig.1 predicts the

change in the reflux flow required to keep the distillate composition at its setpoint after a disturbance
in the feedflow. A feedforward calculation accurate
to *lo%, for example, will reduce the sensitivity
of product quality to those measured disturbances
by a factor of 10 - a substantial reward for modest
accuracy [9]. Because of the presence of large control interactions, a decoupler model is also shown
in Fig.1. The decoupler cancels the effect of the
bottoms controller on the distillate composition by
predicting the change in the reflux flow.

A typical transfer function for a binary distillation

column is shown in Fig.:! [lo]. Because of the presence of large delays in the process, Smith predictor
dead-time compensator is used for the distillate and
bottoms composition controllers(Fig.3).

If the feedforward and decoupling models are not

accurate, then the dist;llate controller will be depended on to take the control action whenever the
disturbance enters the column in the form of a change
in the feedflow. Because the distillate controller

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pler model a reflux dead-time before time t l and for

a time equal to t2 - tl. Having found out the responses of both the models during the time of the
overshoot, the fuzzy supervisor has to calculate how
much the gain of each model has to be changed. The
calculation of the change in model gain is based on
the following facts:

cannot take control action until error is introduced

in the control loop and because of the presence of
large time delays in the loop, the control performance deteriorates significantly, resulting in poor
composition control. In practice, the plant is different from the model and there is uncertainty in
the plant gain [ll]. Hence, some form of supervisory control is required for adapting these models
to achieve tight composition control.

1. If there is an overshoot in temperature, then

the gain of the model which decreased the reflux has to be decreased and the gain of the
model which increased the reflux has to be increased.

Simple adaptation schemes do not exist for MIMO

systems. For example, in the system shown in Fig.4,
if we decide to use the output of the controller 1 for
adapting the gain of the feedforward models, there
is no simple adaptation scheme that can be used to
decide which of the feedforward model gains has to
be changed. Here, we propose a simple and powerful
supervisory fuzzy adaptation scheme based on fuzzy
linguistic adaptive rules. The fuzzy supervisor monitors the process continuously and decides changes
to the feedforward and decoupler model gains, if any,
after every change in the feedflow. In the next section, we discuss the technical issues associated with
the design of the linguistic adaptive rules and show
how the fuzzy adaptive scheme can be used to effectively adapt the feedforward and decoupler models
and reject the feedflow disturbances.

2. If there is an undershoot in temperature, then

the gain of the model which decreased the reflux
has to be increased and the gain of the model
which increased the reflux has to be decreased.

3. The amount of change depends on the extent of

the temperature overshoot or undershoot and
the response of the models during this time.
For the example of increase in feedflow and overshoot in temperature, it is easy to see that the feedflow feedforward signal should have increased during
the time of the overshoot. Hence, the decrease in the
feedforward model gain can be calculated using the
fuzzy rule table shown in Fig.5.

I v . FUZZY ADAPTATION
In the distillation column considered here( Fig. l),we
have used the top tray temperature controller for indirectly controlling the distillate composition. The
objective of the fuzzy adaptive supervisor is to monitor the top tray temperature continuously and decide if the gain of the feedforward model or decoupler model has to be changed. If the temperature
goes above or below a control band around the setpoint after a step change in the feedflow, then a gain
change is needed. But, to decide which model gain
has to be changed, the fuzzy supervisor also needs
to know the response of the feedforward model and
decoupler model during the time (or a dead-time
before when there is a delay in the loop) of the temperature overshoot or undershoot.
Suppose, for example, after a feed flow increase,
there is an overshoot in top tray temperature T2
which starts at timet = t l and ends at t i m e t = t2.
The fuzzy supervisor calculates the output of the
feedforward model in terms of the change in magnitude a refluz dead-time (reflux dead-time denotes
the time delay between a change in the reflux flow
and the effect of this change in the top tray temperature) before time t l and for a time equal to t2 t l . Similarly, it calculates the output of the decou-

Zero, small, medium, ... are linguistic terms which

are represented as fuzzy subsets of the universe of
discourse that corresponds to the particular variable
of interest. Using fact 3 above, it is easy to see that
for a large increase in the feedforward signal and
a small overshoot in temperature, only a very very
small decrease in feedforward model gain is required.
It is possible that the decoupler model may also have
contributed t o the reflux change during the time of
the temperature overshoot. However, in most of
the industrial distillation columns, the time taken
by the liquid flowing from the feed tray to the column bottom represents the dominant dead-time in
the column. Hence, after a feedflow change, the top
tray temperature changes first followed by a delayed
change in the bottom tray temperature. Also, there
may be a time delay associated with the reboiler
in the bottom temperature controller loop. This
means that the contribution from the feedforward
model after a feedflow change comes first followed
by a delayed contribution from the decoupler model.
Nevertheless, considering that there exists an overlap, for the above example, the fuzzy supervisor will
propose a decrease in the feedforward model gain

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and an increase in the decoupler model gain at the

same time. Noting that each of these gain changes,
if applied independently, is capable of bringing the
overshoot within the control band (assuming one of
the two models is accurate), we devise a gain scaling method(Fig.6) that uses the contribution of each
model towards the reflux change to decide the actual change in the model gains.
One fuzzy meta rule (a meta rule refers to a general description based on which a number of specific
rules may be derived) for the fuzzy adaptive supervisor can be summarized as follows.
.If there is a small overshoot after a large increase
in feed flow,
there should be a very very small decrease in the
gain of the signal that decreased the reflux a repuz
dead-time before the overshoot
(or)
there should be a very very small increase in the
gain of the signal that increased the reflux a refiuz
dead-time before the overshoot
(or)
if both signals are present, calculate the gains as
above and apply after suitable scaling.
V. RESULTS
We implemented the supervisory fuzzy adaptation
scheme on a benzene-toluene binary distillation column simulation program (Fig.7). Feed composition,
temperature and column pressure are assumed to
be a constant. The initial tray composition were
chosen from an industrial distillation column [12].
Initially, arbitrary values for the feedforward gain
and decoupler gain were chosen as 1.0 & 0.2 respectively. The response of top tray temperature T2
for a step increase of 10% in the feedflow (from 100
mole/minute to 110 mole/minute) at time t = t l
is shown in Fig.8. We made the fuzzy computed
changes to the feedforward model gain and the decoupler model gain and again applied a step increase
of 10% in the feedflow at time t = t2. From Fig.8,
we note that the response of the tray temperature
is improved significantly. The above steps were repeated until time t = t5, when no overshoot in the
tray temperature is observed. Fig.9 and Fig.10 show
the feedforward gain changes and the decoupler gain
changes proposed by the fuzzy scheme.
VI. CONCLUSION
In this paper we showed that a simple supervisory
fuzzy adaptation scheme based on fuzzy linguistic
adaptive rules can adapt the feedforward model and

decoupler model in a binary distillation column to

achieve tight composition control in the presence of
feedflow disturbances. It is clear that if the process cannot be usefully modeled within the framework assumed by the theory, then satisfactory control cannot be achieved. By using a linguistic adaptation scheme, we showed that qualitative information about the process can be used to achieve significant improvements in control performance. The application of this technique can be extended t o distillation columns with feed composition and feed temperature variations and to multiproduct distillation
columns.
REFERENCES
[l] M. N. Karim and G. K. F. Lee, Study of Robustness in Multivariable Control System Design for Distillation Columns, Advances in Instrumentation Vol. 38, pp. 695-705, 1983.
[2] A. E. Nisenfeld and R. C. Seeman, Distillation
Column. North Carolina: Instrument Society
of America, 1987.
[3] K. E. Haggblom and K. V. Waller, Practical
Distillation Control Edited by William L. Luyben. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, pp.
193, 1992.
[4] D. A. Hokanson and J . G. Gerstle, Practical
Distillation Control Edited by William L. Luyben. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, pp.
253, 1992.
[5] R. M. Tong, A control engineering review of
fuzzy systems, Automatica, vol. 13, pp. 559569, 1977.
[6] L. J . Huang and M. Tomizuka, A self paced
fuzzy tracking controller for two dimensional
motion control. IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, 1990.
[7] P. Cartwright and M. Thomson, Knowledge
based control of a binary distillation column,
IEE colloquium on knowledge based control:
principles and applications (Digest No. 091),
London, 1991.
[8] G. Langari and M. Tomizuka, Fuzzy linguistic model based control, IEEE International
Symposium on Intelligent Control, Philadelphia, 1990.
[9] F. G. Shinskey, Distillation Control for Productivity and Energy Conservation. New York:
McGraw-Hill, 1971.
[IO] K. V. Waller, Practical Distillation Control
Edited by William L. Luyben. New York: Van
Nostrand Reinhold, pp. 318, 1992.
[I11 S. Skogestad, Practical Distillation Control
Edited by William L . Luyben. New York: Van
Nostrand Reinhold, pp. 291-309, 1992.

W. L. Luyben, Process Modeling Simulation

and Control for Chemical Engineers. New York:
McGraw- Hill, 1990.

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