A Model Reference Adaptive Control (MRAC) System for the Pneumatic Valve of the Bottle Washer in Beverages Using Simulink

One of the most important processes in beverage manufacturing companies is the bottle washing process. When the bottles are returned from the customers they are first cleaned in the bottle washer before they can be reused. The pneumatic valve of the bottle washing machine which controls the discharge of clean bottles sometimes sticks or fails which results in significant loss of production in the plant since all the other processes which follow depend on the bottle washing machine. The main causes of failure are temperatures and pressure outside the required ranges, and also minor contributions by moisture and abrasive particles. These parameters were controlled by designing a Fuzzy Logic Controller using MATLAB and it was found that pressure and temperature should be maintained between 0.5 - 2.99 bars and 50 - 85˚C, respectively, with moisture levels at 2.5% and dust levels at 0.5%. This is an artificial intelligent (AI) technique whereby the system will be able to plan, sense, reason, act and learn in a human intelligent way. Two solutions were developed to control the operation of the valve in cases of disturbances and non-linearity, namely; the Model Reference Adaptive Fuzzy Controller (MRAFC) and MRAC with PID controllers. Simulations were carried out and the MRAFC design showed excellent tracking results as compared to MRAC PID controller.