Bioprocess Engineering 20 (1999) 127132 Springer-Verlag 1999

Control of unstable bioreactor using fuzzy tuned PI controller

B. Satishkumar, M. Chidambaram

Abstract A fuzzy tuning scheme for conventional PI

controller is developed for controlling an unstable continuous bioreactor. The performance is compared with
that of a xed setting conventional PI controller. The
performance of the tuning scheme is studied by simulating
the non-linear model equations of the bioreactor. The
robustness of the controller is also studied for uncertainties in the process parameters such as yield factor and
measurement delay. Simulation results show that the fuzzy
tuning improves the overall performance and particularly
it is more robust to parameter uncertainties.
List of symbols
D
dilution rate
e
absolute error scaled between 0 and 1
De
absolute change in error scaled between 0
and 1
Kp
process gain
Kc
controller proportional gain
Kc;max ; Kc;min maximum and minimum values of controller gain based on stability
Kc;maxa ; Kc;mina allowable maximum and minimum values
of proportional gain
Ki
controller integral gain Kc =sI
Ki;maxa ; Ki;mina allowable maximum and minimum values
of integral gain
kI
substrate inhibition constant (g/l)
km
substrate saturation constant (g/l)
L
time delay in measurement (h)
S
substrate concentration in the reactor (g/l)
Sf
feed substrate concentration (g/l)
s
laplace variable
t
time (h)
X
biomass concentration in the reactor (g/l)
D
deviation from steady state value
dKc
normalised value of proportional gain
normalised value of integral gain
dKi
c
cell mass yield (g/g)
e
given by ol=oS, evaluated at steady-state
condition
s
time constant (h)
Received: 24 February 1998

B. Satishkumar, M. Chidambaram
Department of Chemical Engineering,
Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai, India
Correspondence to: M. Chidambaram

sI
l
lm
w

integral time (h)

specic growth rate (l/h)
maximum specic growth rate (l/h)
fuzzy membership function

1
Introduction
Bioreactors have a non-linear behaviour and exhibit output multiplicity for certain parameter values [1, 2]. Some
of the steady states may also be unstable such that, even a
small perturbation in the process conditions will make the
system to move away from the steady state. Usually it is
desired to operate the bioreactor at the unstable steady
state [2] and hence a feedback controller is required to
operate it in the unstable steady state. Conventional PI
controllers do not give satisfactory response for non-linear
processes like bioreactor because of the change in process
gain and time constant with the operating conditions.
Further, there is a signicant delay in the output measurement [1] which deteriorates the performance of the
closed loop system. So, a controller tuned at one operating
condition may even destabilise the system for other operating conditions. A review of the work done on control
of bioreactors is given by Agrawal and Lim [1] and
Shimizu [3]. Chen and Chang [4] have analysed the difculties in controlling the unstable bioreactor using a proportional controller.
Controller design for open loop unstable system is more
difcult than for stable systems. Some common performance specications for stable systems may be impossible
to achieve for unstable systems. De Paor and O'Malley [5]
have proposed a Ziegler-Nichols type formulae for tuning
P/PI/PID controllers for unstable rst order plus time
delay systems. Chidambaram [6] has given a review of the
work done in control of unstable systems.
As the operating conditions change, the PI/PID controller with xed settings may not maintain a satisfactory
response. Frequent tuning of the controller settings is done
by the operator based on his experience to get a good
response. Hence, it is desirable to translate the operators
experience into an automatic scheme. The fuzzy logic
developed by Zadeh [7] can be used for this. Reported
works on fuzzy self tuning of conventional controllers
show a good improvement in process response for stable
systems [812].
In this paper, a rule based fuzzy logic tuner is developed
for tuning a conventional PI controller for controlling an
unstable bioreactor. The fuzzy tuner is implemented to
improve the response of the PI controller. The perfor-

127

Bioprocess Engineering 20 (1999)

128

mance of this tuning scheme is evaluated by simulation of The performances of the closed loop system are evaluated
the non-linear model equations of the bioreactor.
by simulating the non-linear model equations with the
controller parameters given above. The system being initially in the stable steady state 3 (X 1:5301; S 0:1746)
2
is forced to move to the unstable steady state 2
PI Controller design
(X 0:9951; S 1:5122). The response shows a large
The model equations of a continuous bioreactor exhibiting
overshoot and it takes long time to settle as shown in
substrate inhibition, proposed by Agrawal and Lim [1] is
Fig. 1. The response of the system for a 30% step change in
used for simulation studies. For some operating paramethe set point of cell mass concentration X is shown in
ters the system exhibits output multiplicity. The model
Fig. 2. The PI controller response is much oscillatory.
equations are given as:
Since there are uncertainties in the kinetics of bioreactor,
dX=dt l DX ;
1 the robustness of the PI controller is studied for uncertainties in measurement delay and the cell mass yield c.
dS=dt Sf SD lX=c ;
2 For a 20% uncertainty in measurement delay L, the PI
controller with the settings as given by (8) is unable to
where:
stabilise the system for a 30% step change in set point
l lm S=km S kI S2 :
3 from X 0:9951. The system exhibits continuous oscillaIt is desirable to control the cell mass concentration X of tions as given by Jacob and Chidambaram [13] and is
shown in Fig. 3. For a 25% uncertainty in the yield factor c
the reactor by manipulating the dilution rate D. Feed
substrate concentration Sf is considered as disturbance. the system shows a highly oscillatory behaviour and it
This control structure is termed to be turbidostat [1]. The takes a long time to settle. The response for this case is
shown in Fig. 4. Simulation is carried out for a load change
system parameters are given by:
in feed substrate concentration Sf by 30% of the steady
c 0:4 g=g; Sf 4% g=l; lm 0:53 l=h;
state value and the result is shown in Fig. 5.

km 0:12 g=l; kI 0:4545% g=l; D 0:3 l=h ;

Solving the model Eqs. (1)(3) with these model parame- Fuzzy tuning of PI controller
ters give the following three solutions:
By tuning conventional controllers using fuzzy logic, good
improvement in the process response is shown in the litX; S1 0; 4 wash-out condition;
erature for stable systems. He et al. [8] have parameterised
X; S2 0:9951; 1:5122 unstable;
5 the Ziegler-Nichols tuning rule by a single parameter and
then tuned that parameter using fuzzy logic and have
X; S3 1:5301; 0:1746 stable :
applied it for stable transfer function models. Ramkumar
Of these steady states, in the wash-out condition, there is and Chidambaram [12] have modied the He et al. method
no conversion at all, and the bioreactor is not operated in by parameterising the Ziegler-Nichols formula by two
this steady state. In the stable steady state, the conversion parameters and then tuning them by fuzzy logic. They
rate is too high, which may lead to product inhibition on
specic growth rate. Hence, as stated earlier, it is desirable
to operate the reactor in the unstable steady state. Linearising the non-linear model equations around the operating point (0.9951, 1.5122) gives [13] the transfer function
relating deviation in cell mass concentration (from the
steady-state) and the deviation in dilution rate:

DX=DD Kp s0 s 1=s0 s 1ss 1 ;

where:

s0 1=D; s c=Xe; Kp c=e; e ol=@S :

Considering a measurement delay of L units and cancelling the zero and the stable pole, the transfer function
becomes:

DX=DD Kp eLs =ss 1 :

De Paor and O'Malley [5] have proposed a graphical plot

for calculating the PI controller settings for an unstable
rst order plus time delay system. For the chosen parameter values, the model parameters are given by,
s 5:888; Kp 5:859 and a measurement delay L 1 is
Fig. 1. Response for forcing the cell mass concentration (X) to
considered. The PI controller parameters are:

Kc 0:7356; sI 5:452 :

move from stable steady-state (3) to unstable steady-state (2)

Fuzzy tuned PI controller Fixed setting PI controller

B. Satishkumar, M. Chidambaram: Control of unstable bioreactor using fuzzy tuned PI controller

129

Fig. 2. Response for 30% step change in set-point from

X 0:9951: Legend: as in Fig. 1

Fig. 4. Response for 30% step change in set-point from

X 0:9951 with 25% uncertainty in yield factor c. Legend: as in
Fig. 1

Fig. 3. Response for 30% step change in set-point from

X 0:9951 with 20% uncertainty in measurement delay. Legend:
Fig. 5. Response for load change in feed substrate from Sf 4 to
as in Fig. 1
Sf 5:2: Legend: as in Fig. 1

have applied this tuning scheme to a non-linear stable

bioreactor and have shown that the performance is improved over that of the xed settings of a PI controller.
They have shown that fuzzy tuning improves the response
and is robust to process parameters uncertainties and to
changes in magnitude and direction of the disturbances
for the stable bioreactor. Baras and Patel [10] have adjusted the closed loop dominant poles using fuzzy logic
tuning of PID controllers for stable plants with large rise
time and they have applied it for non-linear pH control
and separator temperature control. But they have not
given any comparative study with xed setting PID controller. The method proposed by Zhao et al. [9] considers

the range over which the controller parameters can be

varied and have shown simulation results for transfer
function models with stable poles. They have not studied
the robustness of the controller under parameter uncertainties. De Carli et al. [11] have proposed a similar
method in which the change in controller parameters from
their nominal values are evaluated using fuzzy rule base.
There are four tuning parameters and also the rule base
is very large. They have given simulation results for a
second order Type-1 system without delay. The method
proposed by Zhao et al. [9] is modied here for tuning PI
controllers for an unstable bioreactor.

Bioprocess Engineering 20 (1999)

130
Fig. 6. Schematic diagram of fuzzy self-tuning PI controller

The schematic diagram of a fuzzy self-tuning PI controller is shown in Fig. 6. The velocity form of PI controller
algorithm is given by:

Du Kc en en1 Ki en :

Fig. 7. Membership functions for e and De

The proportional gain Kc is tuned by fuzzy logic keeping

the integral gain constant. Ki Ki Kc =sI is kept constant
so as to reduce the number of rules. This means that the
integral time sI is varied in such a way that the integral
gain Ki is maintained constant. The proportional gain Kc is
normalised between 0 and 1 by the linear transformation:

dKc Kc Kc;mina =Kc;maxa Kc;mina ;

10

where the subscripts mina and maxa denote the allowable

minimum and maximum controller gains. These values are
to be selected from the ultimate values of Kc;min and Kc;max
(obtained from the stability analysis). The error and the
change in error are normalised with respect to their
maximum values so far obtained and the resulting absolute values are taken. The fuzzy inference mechanism
needs this e and De as the input and evaluates dKc using its
rule base. Four fuzzy sets (Z, S, M, L) are considered for
both e and De and two fuzzy sets (S, B) are considered for
the output dKc . The membership functions for e, De and
dKc are to be specied. Triangular membership function is
Fig. 8. Logarithmic membership function for output dKc
chosen for the inputs e and De and logarithmic membership function is used for the output dKc . For the unstable
bioreactor, these are shown in Figs. 7 and 8. The grade of Table 1 Fuzzy tuning rules for dKc
membership functions w for the output variable xdKc is
De
Z
S
M
L
given by:
e

wsmall x lnx=4 or
wbig x ln1 x=4
or xbig w 1 e4w ;

xsmall w e4w ;

11
12

The fuzzy rule base is to be constructed from the step

response of the system. The rule base for dKc is given in
Table 1.
From Table 1, for example, the rst fuzzy rule can be
interpreted as: If e is Z and De is Z then dKc is B. Similar
interpretation can be made for other entries in the table.
The Centroid method of defuzzication is used to get the
crisp value of dKc from the fuzzy variables. After determining dKc controller parameter is calculated using the
Eq. (10). By stability analysis of Eq. (7), the minimum and

Z
S
M
L

B
B
B
B

S
B
B
B

S
S
B
B

S
S
S
B

maximum values of controller gain are Kc;max 1:47;

Kc;min 0:17. The negative sign indicates that if error
increases the manipulative variable has to decrease. The
maximum and minimum allowable values of the controller
parameter Kc is chosen around the design values calculated as earlier for PI control. After some simulation trials,
the values Kc;maxa 0:68; Kc;mina 0:3, with integral
gain Ki 0:1 are found to give a good performance for
the present problem.

B. Satishkumar, M. Chidambaram: Control of unstable bioreactor using fuzzy tuned PI controller

4
Performance evaluation
The performance of the closed loop system when forced to
move from the stable steady state 3 (X 1:5301;
S 0:1746) to the unstable steady state 2 (X 0:9951;
S 1:5122) is shown in Fig. 1. The overshoot is reduced
and it settles faster. For a 30% step change in the set point,
the oscillations are reduced as shown in Fig. 2. With 20%
uncertainty in measurement delay L, for a 30% step change
in set point from X 0:9951 fuzzy tuning helps to stabilise
the closed loop response where the PI controller fails to
stabilise. The response for this case is shown in Fig. 3. For
a 25% uncertainty in c the oscillations are reduced and it
settles faster as shown in Fig. 4. For load change in feed
substrate concentration Sf by 30% the results are equally
comparable. The variation of proportional gain for the
cases shown in Figs. 1 and 3 are shown in Figs. 9 and 10.
Since, the integral gain Ki is kept constant, sI will vary
similarly but with a different scale. To sum up, we can say
that fuzzy tuning improves the robustness of the controller
under process uncertainties which is a major requirement
for non-linear processes such as bioreactors with uncertainties in process kinetics.
Tuning both the proportional gain and integral gain
individually has also been tried for this unstable bioreactor
control problem. The integral gain also has been normalised between 0 and 1 using a similar equation as (10). The
tuning rules for the normalised integral gain dKi is as
shown in Table 2. Additional 16 rules are required for this
case.
After several simulation trials, the values
Kc;maxa 0:68; Kc;mina 0:4 and Ki;maxa 0:1;
Ki;mina 0:02 are found to give better results. The simulation result for the case shown in Fig. 1 is given here in
Fig. 11. There is not much improvement in the process
response even though an additional 16 rules are used for
tuning the integral gain.

131

Fig. 10. Controller gain variation for the response shown in Fig. 3

Table 2 Fuzzy tuning rules for dKi

e
Z
S
M
L

De

B
B
B
B

B
B
B
B

S
S
B
B

S
S
S
B

Fig. 11. Comparison of responses of tuning only Kc and tuning both Kc and Ki for Fig. 1 tuning only Kc ; tuning both Kc
Fig. 9. Controller gain variation for the response shown in Fig. 1 and Ki

Bioprocess Engineering 20 (1999)

132

5
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