Combined reference tracking and genetic algorithm to control microwave power and phase during heating process

Microwave has been widely used in various applications. But during microwave heating process, two main problems which are heating nonuniformity and thermal runaway remain to be solved. For material heated by two sources, the arising of resonant which leads to thermal runaway is dangerous. Because of the wave superposition property, different phases between the two input sources can generate different electric wave distributions. By properly controlling input power and the relative phase between the two input sources, heating runaway can be eliminated. For the parabolic differential equation which describes heat generation and conduction, by using linearization, it can be transformed to ordinary differential equations. Then by combining reference tracking algorithm and genetic algorithm, a uniform heating process can obtain. The simulation results prove the effectiveness of the control algorithm, and the temperature difference between different locations is smaller compared to constant input.