The experiment “Ball-in-tube” with Fuzzy-PID controller based on dspace

The "ball-in-tube" experiment can be applied in some industrial field such as oil industry .etc. It is more of being used in the university laboratory for researching non-linear control technology. The control object for "ball in a tube" is to regulate the speed of a fan blowing air into a tube so as to keep a Ping-Pang ball suspended at some predetermined position in the tube. Although conceptually simple, this is a difficult control problem due to the non-linear effects on the ball and the complex physics governing its behavior. Furthermore, the ball is extremely sensitive to any external disturbances from the fan. Taken together, it is difficult to be controlled by the traditional mathematics, and not easily captured in simulated or mathematical comparisons of control algorithms. The Fuzzy-PID can be built to regulate the ball\´s position automatically. The parameters in the PID controller are treated as fuzzy variables and the controller is implemented and tuned. We use this device to experimentally compare a traditional PID controller and Fuzzy-PID controller. The results show significant differences in the performance characteristics of the controllers.