Design of weigh feeder control system using extremum-seeking method

This paper proposes a new control method for a weigh feeder. A weigh feeder has been widely employed in industry because it can dispense powder at a specified rate or amount. The proposed controller is mainly divided into a feed-forward and a feedback compensators. In order to obtain a simple controller, the former gives a steady-state control input designed using a nominal plant gain, and the latter consists of proportional gain and the control error between a reference input and a plant output. Because the proportional gain must be designed to stabilize a closed-loop system, it is updated using an extremum-seeking method. As a result, the control performance of the proposed method can be improved by seeking its extremum value. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated by both simulation and experimental results.