A simulation study of Model Reference Adaptive Control on temperature control of glycerin bleaching process

Temperature plays a major role in determining the effectiveness of bleaching process. Poor temperature control will degrade the end product quality and this problem can be overcome by engaging a robust temperature control. However, since the nature of bleaching process possess large time delay and unknown dynamic variations or uncertainties, it is inherently difficult to design a good temperature controller and simultaneously maintain the desired transient performance aspect. This paper presents the preliminary study of Model Reference Adaptive Control (MRAC) implementation in temperature control of glycerin bleaching process. Open loop step test data is used to construct the Auto-Regressive with Exogenous Input (ARX) corresponding model. The MRAC approach based on Lyapunov rule was tested and analyzed. Simulation results show that, through proper selection of adaptation gain, MRAC is capable to provide excellent temperature regulating performance and also proficient in sustaining the excellent performance under set point change.