ISA Transactions 50 (2011) 2836

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ISA Transactions
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Tuning of an optimal fuzzy PID controller with stochastic algorithms for

networked control systems with random time delay
Indranil Pan a , Saptarshi Das a,b , Amitava Gupta a,b,
a
Department of Power Engineering, Jadavpur University, Salt Lake Campus, LB-8, Sector 3, Kolkata-700098, India
b
School of Nuclear Studies and Applications (SNSA), Jadavpur University, Salt Lake Campus, LB-8, Sector 3, Kolkata-700098, India

article info abstract

Article history: An optimal PID and an optimal fuzzy PID have been tuned by minimizing the Integral of Time multiplied
Received 12 August 2010 Absolute Error (ITAE) and squared controller output for a networked control system (NCS). The tuning is
Received in revised form attempted for a higher order and a time delay system using two stochastic algorithms viz. the Genetic
11 October 2010
Algorithm (GA) and two variants of Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and the closed loop performances
Accepted 19 October 2010
Available online 11 November 2010
are compared. The paper shows that random variation in network delay can be handled efficiently with
fuzzy logic based PID controllers over conventional PID controllers.
Keywords:
2010 ISA. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Fuzzy PID controller
Genetic Algorithm
Networked control system
Optimal tuning
Particle Swarm Optimization
Random network delay

1. Introduction be the choice of inputs, scaling factors, membership functions

Fuzzy logic controllers (FLC) have become more common
in recent control applications to handle complex nonlinear
processes [1,2]. It has been shown by many contemporary
researchers that application of FLC enhances the closed loop
performance of a PID controller in terms of handling change in
an operating point for nonlinear processes by online updating
the controller parameters [3,4]. FLCs generally work with a set
of control rules, derived from experts knowledge. Various fuzzy
logic controller structures which are analogous to the conventional
PID controllers are analyzed by Mann et al. [5] and Golob [6]
using single or multiple input conditions (viz. error, change of
error and rate of change of error). The universal approximation
property as in [2] states that there is a way to implement fuzzy
controllers for almost all types of nonlinear processes but there
is no mathematical formulation to decide what would be the
appropriate choice of fuzzy parameters in implementing them.
Hence empirical rules are used for the choice of various fuzzy
parameters as discussed in [7]. The fuzzy tuning parameters may
Corresponding author at: Department of Power Engineering, Jadavpur Univer-
sity, Salt Lake Campus, LB-8, Sector 3, Kolkata-700098, India. Tel.: +91 9830489108,
+91 33 2442 7700; fax: +91 33 2335 7254.
E-mail addresses: indranil.jj@student.iitd.ac.in, indranil@pe.jusl.ac.in (I. Pan),
saptarshi@pe.jusl.ac.in (S. Das), amitg@pe.jusl.ac.in (A. Gupta).
0019-0578/$ see front matter 2010 ISA. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.isatra.2010.10.005
(number or type or both), rule base, fuzzificationdefuzzification
and inferencing techniques [7].
It has been shown in [24,8] that a change in inputoutput
scaling factors (SF) affects the control performance of the FLC to a
greater extent compared to the choice of the type of membership
functions (MF). Also, the output SFs act like the controller gains
and hence directly affect the stability of the closed loop system. So,
the output SFs have greater importance than the input SFs on the
closed loop performance of a process and hence should be chosen
very carefully. The FLC tries to mimic the operators expertise by
incorporating a nonlinear relationship between the error and the
derivative of error and that of the output control signal [1,2]. Often,
fixed SFs and predefined MFs become insufficient for achieving
an optimal performance and need to be tuned online. It has been
shown by Woo et al. [8] that a change in input and output scaling
factors (SF) affects the control performance to a higher extent than
variation in overlap of the fuzzy membership functions. Hence, in
the present study, only inputoutput SFs are tuned to find out the
optimal parameters of a FLC based PID controller to handle random
variation in network delay.
In recent past, fuzzy logic based PID controllers have become
more common to handle complex dynamic processes. Diverse
linear and nonlinear plants have been tuned by Mudi and Pal
[3,4] and Bhattacharya et al. [9] with a fuzzy gain tuning
mechanism and implemented along with a two input-one output
FLC. Various improvements in conventional PID controllers using
 I. Pan et al. / ISA Transactions 50 (2011) 2836
Fig. 1. Optimal fuzzy PID structure with random network delays.
a fuzzy inferencing mechanism have been investigated in [1013].
Various tuning methods have also been proposed for tuning the
fuzzy controller parameters as in [14] and others involving the
Genetic Algorithm etc. [10,1416]. Mathematical quantification
using non symmetrical fuzzy sets for a generalized class of
controllers has been discussed by Mohan and Sinha [17] and the
applicability of various types of fuzzy controllers from control
perspective are analyzed. Performances of fuzzy PIDs are compared
with normal PIDs and model predictive control in [18]. In [18]
the fuzzy parameters are tuned using the NelderMead downhill
simplex method. Also various performance indices [1820] for
the cost function are compared in [18]. PID controller parameters
have been tuned by a fuzzy system by Kazemian [21]. Fuzzy logic
coupled with neural networks has also been used to tune PID
parameters in [19].
Due to quantum leaps in communication systems, in recent
years, it has become more normal to use a common commu-
nication channel like Ethernet or CAN bus etc. for transmission
of the control signal and the measured output. This helps in re-
ducing wiring costs and eliminates the necessity for maintain-
ing dedicated communication channels for each control parameter
[22,23]. However, this type of networked control system is not a
panacea and has various unresolved issues like transmission delays
and packet dropouts [24] which can degrade control performance.
Hence these finer nuances over conventional control systems need
to be delved into before actually implementing it in a real plant.
In recent NCS applications, fuzzy logic based controllers have
been proved to be efficient in handling packet drop-out [25,26] and
network induced delays [23]. Various improvisations over existing
protocols have been proposed using fuzzy logic in [2628] which
help in congestion control and reduce delays and packet losses in
the network. We, however intend to focus on existing transmission
protocols and evaluate performances of various controllers for
varying levels of transmission delays. Different models based
on fuzzy logic have been proposed for the modelling of a NCS
in [29,30]. Various nonlinear systems which can be represented by
equivalent fuzzy models have been implemented over the network
in [3140] and their performance with respect to delays and packet
dropouts have been analyzed. A Matlab based co-simulation tool
called TrueTime which helps in analyzing controller task execution
in real time kernels along with network transmissions and
continuous plant dynamics has been used in the analysis of fuzzy
PID controllers implemented over the network in [4148]. Fuzzy
logic controllers with their improvisations have been implemented
to handle network induced delays and their performances over
their conventional counterparts have been investigated in [4952].
A fuzzy PID controller has been implemented for a network based
cascade control system in [53,54]. However no optimization of the
fuzzy PID parameters has been done to check for the optimum
values of these parameters. Also time domain error indices like
ITAE, Integral of Absolute Error (IAE) etc. based optimization have
not been included in the analysis, and the saturation of controller
output for these controllers has not been investigated. In the
29
present work, we implement a fuzzy PID controller for a higher
order plant and also a plant with time delay and optimize the fuzzy
parameters with stochastic algorithms like the Genetic Algorithm
and Particle Swarm Optimization, taking the random delays in
the network into account. Also the effectiveness of the various
stochastic algorithms and their variants for tuning are compared
in the present study. Our cost function not only includes ITAE but
also has the controller output taken into account to avoid controller
saturation.
A practical networked control loop generally consists of a
deterministic inherent system delay and two stochastic delays [23]
viz. the controller to actuator delay ( CA ) and the sensor to
controller delay ( SC ) as shown in Fig. 1. Under these conditions,
the process to be controlled over a network can be considered as
randomly varying with time. It has been suggested by Mudi and
Pal [3,4] that FLCs have a higher capability of enforcing optimal
performance in a control loop over conventional optimal PIDs for
nonlinear and time-varying systems. In this paper, an optimal
fuzzy PID controller has been tuned by minimizing the sum of
ITAE and squared value of control signal considering random
variation in network delay and the performance is compared with a
conventional optimal PID controller, tuned with the same criteria.
The performance of the optimal controllers also depends on
the choice of a suitable optimization algorithm, used for controller
tuning. Many stochastic optimization algorithms have come up in
control applications, especially in controller tuning [5557]. In this
paper, a PID and fuzzy-PID controller have been tuned with two
stochastic optimization algorithms, namely the Genetic Algorithm
and Particle Swarm Optimization with its two variants viz. gbest
and lbest PSO [58,59].
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2 discusses
the structure of the optimal fuzzy PID. A brief description of the
two stochastic optimization methods used for controller tuning is
discussed in Section 3. Section 4 presents the simulation results of
two test plants with and without random network delay. The paper
ends with the conclusion as Section 5 followed by the references.
2. Structure of the fuzzy PID controller and its optimal tuning
2.1. Fuzzy PID controller to handle random network delay
The fuzzy PID structure (Fig. 1) used in this paper is a
combination of fuzzy PI and fuzzy PD controllers with Ke , Kd as
input SFs and , as output SFs as discussed by Woo et al. [8],
Yesil et al. [60], Qiao and Mizumoto [61], Li et al. [62], Mohan
and Sinha [63] and Mann et al. [64]. This uses two-dimensional
linear rule base (Fig. 2) for error (e), error derivative (e) and FLC
output (uFLC ) with standard triangular MFs (Fig. 3) and Mamdani-
type inferencing.
In Figs. 2 and 3, the fuzzy linguistic variables NL, NM, NS, ZR,
PS, PM, PL represent Negative Large, Negative Medium, Negative
Small, Zero, Positive Small, Positive Medium and Positive Large
respectively. The FLC output (uFLC ) is determined by using the
center of gravity method by defuzzification.
30
Fig. 2. Rule base for error, error derivative and FLC output.
Fig. 3. Membership functions for error, error derivative and FLC output.
2.2. Formulation of the objective function for time domain optimal
tuning
The controller output of a conventional PID is a weighted sum
of error, its derivative and integral values, i.e.
de(t )
[ ] [ ]
u(t ) = Kp [e(t )] + Ki e(t )dt + Kd
dt
The simple error minimization criteria can be modified by
introducing a suitable time domain performance index like ITAE
or Integral of Time multiplied Squared Error (ITSE) to have a better
control action. Also for a sudden change in set-point, ITSE based
tuning produces a larger controller output than ITAE, hence in the
present study only ITAE has been considered as a suitable time
domain performance index [55] and not other performance indices
having higher powers of error and time.
The objective function, used for controller tuning has been
taken as a weighted sum of the ITAE and squared control signal
similar to that of [56,57], i.e.
w1 t |e(t )| + w2 u2 (t ) dt .
J =
0
It is worth mentioning that the weights w1 and w2 have been
introduced in the objective function (2) with a provision of
balancing the impact of the error and control signal. In the present
simulation study we have considered equal weights for the two
objectives to be met by the controller as such the minimization
of the error index is as equally important as the control signal is.
The objective function J in (2) is now minimized to find out the
optimal set of controller parameters which simultaneously reduces
the ITAE and control signal u(t ). The time multiplication term in
error index ITAE minimizes the chance of oscillation at later stages,
thus effectively reducing the settling time (ts ) of the closed loop
system and the absolute value of error minimizes the percentage
of overshoot (%Mp ). The minimization of the squared control signal
reduces the chance of actuator saturation and also reduces the size
of the actuator and thus the cost involved.
I. Pan et al. / ISA Transactions 50 (2011) 2836
It has been seen that classical optimization problems often
get trapped in local minima. This limitation can be overcome
by the introduction of stochastic optimization methods like
Particle Swarm Optimization or the Genetic Algorithm [5557]. But
optimal performance cannot be guaranteed if there are random
delays in the network, i.e. CA and SC (Fig. 1). To overcome the
. (1) problem of random variation in network delay, the controller
performance can be further enhanced by introducing a FLC based
PID over a simple PID structure. Thus Fuzzy PIDs are expected to
produce satisfactory closed loop response for random variation
in system parameters i.e. network delays in this case. Thus our
proposed scheme combines both the time domain optimality as
well as required robustness against random delay variation in
the closed loop system (due to the network in the loop) with an
optimal Fuzzy PID controller.
3. Stochastic optimization algorithms used for controller
tuning
The tuning of the parameters of the Fuzzy PID controller
(i.e. input and output SFs) has been carried out by two popular
(2) stochastic optimization methods, namely the GA and PSO which
are described briefly in the following subsections.
3.1. Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO)
In PSO the particles are initially distributed randomly in the
search space. The particles move towards a global minima in each
iteration depending on the best value found so far (global best or
gbest) among all the particles and the individual particles best
position (pbest). The objective function which is to be minimized
is used to evaluate the fitness of the particle for a particular
position. For each particle (i) the velocity in each dimension in
the consecutive iteration is updated by the following velocity and
position update equation, given by
vi (t + 1) = vi (t ) + c1 1 (pi (t ) xi (t )) + c2 2 (pg (t ) xi (t ))
(3)
xi (t + 1) = xi (t ) + vi (t + 1).
 I. Pan et al. / ISA Transactions 50 (2011) 2836
Each particles position (xi ) in the next iteration depends on
its velocity (vi ) in the present equation multiplied by an inertia
factor () which is generally kept large so as to prevent random
movement of the particles in the search space and to deviate the
velocity of the particles by a smaller amount in each iteration.
The other two positive constants c1 , c2 are the cognitive learning
rate and the social learning rate respectively. The weights c1 , c2
represent the relative importance of the learning of the particles
from its own best position (pi ) and the global best position (pg ),
and both have been chosen as 1.49 for the present study, similar
to [55]. In (3), {1 , 2 } [0, 1] are two uniformly distributed
random numbers.
The inertia factor () in our case has also been reduced linearly
from 0.9 to 0.4 over the iterations [55]. This is an improvisation
over the conventional PSO algorithm and incorporates a velocity
control mechanism which ensures more effective searching at
a fine grain [56]. A velocity clamping is also introduced in the
algorithm and the maximum value of the velocity is set to 15% of
the range in each dimension [65]. This ensures that the velocity
does not explode to large values and helps in controlling the global
exploration of the particles. However, a judicious choice of the
PSO parameters should be made so as to reduce the computational
effort and at the same time prevent pre-convergence of the
optimum solutions. Maiti et al. [55] dealt with a similar kind of
controller tuning and hence this has been chosen as a base case
for the PSO parameter values.
As a rule of thumb in the PSO algorithm, the minimum number
of particles must be at least greater than the number of solution
variables. Increasing the number of particles gives better results
at the cost of an increase in computational time and complexity.
Hence there is a tradeoff between the two. In our case 20 particles
give satisfactory results in terms of the convergence criterion as
well as the time taken. For the sake of effective comparison of
both the gbest and lbest PSO algorithms the population is chosen
as same.
In the gbest PSO a star topology is considered for the social
network as opposed to a ring topology in lbest PSO [58,59] and in
both cases the number of particles has been considered to be 20.
The same velocity and position update equations are used in both
these PSO variants but in gbest PSO, Pg in (3) represents the global
best of all the particles till the current iteration, whereas in lbest
PSO it represents the neighbourhood best of the particles till the
current iteration for each cluster. The lbest PSO has an overlapping
neighbourhood, to facilitate information exchange. This is based
on adjacent indices of the population array rather than on spatial
positions to reduce computational complexity. In general, the gbest
PSO converges faster than the lbest PSO due to larger particle
interconnectivity. However lbest PSO has larger diversity and is less
susceptible to being trapped in local minima.
3.2. Genetic Algorithm (GA)
The genetic algorithm is another stochastic optimization pro-
cess inspired by natural evolution and can be used to minimize
a suitable objective function for tuning the controller parame-
ters [57]. Initially, a population of solution vectors is created ran-
domly over the whole solution domain. Each solution vector in the
present population undergoes reproduction, crossover and muta-
tion, in each iteration, to give rise to a better population of solution
vectors in the next iteration.
Reproduction implies that solution vectors with higher fitness
values can produce more copies of themselves in the next
generation. Usually a parameter called the elite count is used which
represents the number of fittest individuals (solution vectors) that
will definitely go to the next generation. Increasing the elite count
may result in domination of the fitter individuals obtained earlier
31
in the simulation process and as such will result in less effective
solutions. Hence this parameter is generally a small fraction of
the total population size. In the present study, population size is
considered to be 20 and elite count as 2.
Crossover refers to information exchange based on probabilistic
decisions between solution vectors. Here the child vector of the
next generation is formed by combining the solution vectors of
two parent individuals in the current population. The crossover
fraction dictates how many children other than the elite children
are formed by crossover. The remaining children are formed by
mutation. In mutation a small randomly selected part of a solution
vector is occasionally altered, with a very small probability of
creating a child in the next generation. This way the solution is
refined iteratively until the objective function is minimized below
a certain tolerance level or the maximum number of iterations is
exceeded.
If we have a crossover fraction of 1, which implies that there
is no mutation, then the genetic algorithm initially progresses to
minimize the objective function until it forms the best individual
from the available gene pool. After this the best individual is carried
forward and replicated in successive generations and no new
better individuals are obtained due to lack of mutation. Hence the
problem stagnates and the program terminates with this fitness
value after the maximum number of iterations is reached.
However if we set crossover fraction as 0, implying that the
whole population evolves through mutation, then it does not
improve the fitness of the best individual at the first generation.
It improves the fitness of the other individuals in the population,
but since these are never combined with the genes of the best
individual due to lack of crossover, the best fitness value levels
off at a certain time and the program is terminated when the
maximum number of iterations are reached.
Hence, a judicious choice of the crossover and mutation fraction
needs to be used. In our simulation we have used the crossover
fraction to be 0.8 and mutation fraction to be 0.2 which has given
satisfactory results for a wide variety of problems [66].
4. Results and discussions
The closed loop performance of some representative plants
in Zhuang and Atherton [67] (with and without network delays)
have been compared with a conventional PID and a Fuzzy PID,
both of which have been tuned with three stochastic optimization
methods, namely the GA, gbest PSO and lbest PSO.
1
P1 (s) = (4)
(s + 1)5
2 (0.5s + 1) e0.1s
P2 (s) = . (5)
(s + 1) (4s + 1)
The performance of the above plants has been compared on the
basis of optimal tracking for a unit change in set point as well as
suppression of unit load disturbance [67]. Also, comparisons are
made for control signals in each case which is a cause of actuator
saturation [56,57].
4.1. Simulation without network delay
The stochastic optimization based tuning results for test plants
(4) and (5) with conventional PID and Fuzzy PID are reported in
Tables 1 and 2.
Here, the controller parameters in Tables 1 and 2 are calculated
with minimization of the objective function in (2) for unit change
in set point. Additionally the load disturbance is compared later
to evaluate the performance of the controllers, tuned via different
intelligent optimization algorithms. The closed loop response
for plant P1 and P2 and the respective controller outputs for
unit change in set-point and load disturbance are shown in
Figs. 48.
32 I. Pan et al. / ISA Transactions 50 (2011) 2836

Time Response of Plant P2 with Unit Set-Point Change & Load Disturbance
Table 1
1.2
Tuning results of PID controller without network delay.
Plant Optimization algorithm Jmin Kp Ki Kd
1
GA 53.0824 0.96 0.2273 1.0704
P1 gbest-PSO 52.6866 1.1 0.2462 1.4367
lbest-PSO 52.6866 1.101 0.239 1.4364 0.8

Amplitude
GA 14.46459 1.423 0.3162 0.195
P2 gbest-PSO 14.4294 1.799 0.4025 1.0026 0.6
lbest-PSO 14.43 1.715 0.3816 0.4755

0.4
Time Response of Plant P1 with Unit Set-Point Change & Load Disturbance
1.2
0.2

1
0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
0.8 Time (sec)
Amplitude

0.6 Fig. 6. Output of plant P2 with step change in set-point & load disturbance.

Controller Output for Plant P2

0.4 2.4

2.2
0.2
2

0 1.8
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
1.6
Amplitude
Time (sec)
1.4
Fig. 4. Output of plant P1 with step change in set-point & load disturbance. 1.2

Controller Output for Plant P2 1

2.2
0.8
2 0.6

1.8 0.4
0 10 20 30 40 50 60

1.6 Time (sec)

Amplitude

1.4 Fig. 7. Controller output for plant P2 .

1.2 Time Response of Plant P1 with Unit Set-Point Change & Load Disturbance Considering
Random Network Delays
1 1.2

0.8
1

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
0.8
Time (sec)
Amplitude

0.6
Fig. 5. Controller output for plant P1 .

0.4
4.2. Simulations with network induced delay

Since FLC works on instantaneous values of e and e, rather than 0.2

a predefined model structure, its performance is expected to be
better over a simple PID for handling stochastic delays due to the 0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
network, and the tuning results for the test plants are reported in
Time (sec)
Tables 3 and 4. For the simulation of network delays in the forward
and the feedback path in Fig. 1, a random number in the interval of Fig. 8. Output of plant P1 with random network delay.
[00.2] seconds is generated at each time step.
The hybrid system comprising of the discrete time network and
controller with Zero Order Hold (ZOH) along with the continuous networked control system. Also, the load disturbance suppression
time plant can be considered as a continuous time system with is faster and deviation from the set-point is less with fuzzy PIDs
random delay if the sampling time (Ts ) is very small as shown by compared to a conventional PID controller. The controller output
Tipsuwan and Chow [68] and Fang et al. [69]. In the present study becomes oscillatory with high amplitude in case of simple PID. The
Ts = 0.01 s has been considered. fuzzy PID controller outputs are also oscillatory but the amplitudes
The corresponding closed loop response and controller outputs are less (Figs. 9, 11). To ensure that a large control signal does not
for plant P1 and P2 are shown in Figs. 811, considering network saturate the actuator, the control signal u(t ) is also minimized as a
delays. part of the objective function (2), in the proposed technique.
It is evident from Figs. 8 and 10 that fuzzy PIDs have a nice It is worth mentioning that the introduction of random
capability to suppress the effect of random delay variation in a network delays would lead to such a variation of controller
 I. Pan et al. / ISA Transactions 50 (2011) 2836 33

Table 2
Tuning results of fuzzy PID controller without network delay.
Plant Optimization algorithm Jmin Ke Kd
GA 55.2846 0.4506 0.6335 1.4428 0.6494
P1 gbest-PSO 55.3445 0.4487 0.6113 1.4952 0.6512
lbest-PSO 55.2535 0.4369 0.5525 1.5043 0.6334
GA 14.5233 0.8528 0.5305 3.0839 0.7747
P2 gbest-PSO 14.1719 0.2947 0.372 4.1761 10.487
lbest-PSO 14.1732 0.3522 0.4726 3.2474 7.9644

Controller Output for Plant P1 Considering Random Network Delays Table 3

5 Tuning results of PID with network delay.
Plant Optimization algorithm Jmin Kp Ki Kd
4
GA 54.4237 0.978 0.2217 0.9524
3 P1 gbest-PSO 54.4947 0.946 0.2207 0.9018
lbest-PSO 54.684 0.943 0.2267 1.1464
2 GA 14.5265 1.618 0.3636 0.1876
Amplitude

P2 gbest-PSO 14.677 1.588 0.3059 0.2344

1
lbest-PSO 14.6801 1.158 0.3136 0.4203
0

1 output. Introducing network prediction schemes can ameliorate

the adverse effects to a certain degree. Other alternative can be to
2 design effective transmission protocols so that the random delays
are handled adequately by the network protocol itself. Also, the
3
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 presence of the control signal in the performance index effectively
Time (sec) reduces the band of oscillation in the controller output. With
only a simple error minimizing criteria, the band of oscillation in
Fig. 9. Controller output for plant P1 with random network delay.
control signal would have been more. This is a particular problem
introduced by the randomness of the communication network.
Time Response of Plant P2 with Unit Set-Point & Load Disturbance Since the primary objective of the controller is to maintain time
Considering Random Network Delays
1.2 domain optimality which is evident from the time responses, the
control signal suffers to some extent (as it has been optimized and
1 not been allowed to be arbitrarily high) so as to suppress the effect
of random delay in the time responses and yield a smooth closed
0.8
loop dynamics. From the presented figures and tables, it is also
evident that the PSO variants perform better than the GA for the
Amplitude

optimization process.
0.6

0.4 4.3. Effect of gradual increase in random network delay

0.2 The best tuned controllers of Tables 3 and 4 (having the lowest
Jmin ) are now tested with increased network delay (max
CA
= max
SC
=
0 {0.2, 0.4, 0.5}) to see how efficiently they handle relatively
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
large random delays with the same tuning parameters. Simulated
Time (sec)
results of the system and controller outputs for plants (4)(5) are
Fig. 10. Output of plant P2 with random network delay.
presented in Figs. 1215 respectively.
It is clear from Figs. 13 and 15 that the controller output
for the PID controller becomes larger than the Fuzzy PID when
Controller Output for Plant P2 Considering Random Network Delays
3
the network induced delay is increased, which may saturate the
actuator in practical NCS applications. Also, Fuzzy PIDs give lower
2.5 overshoot than simple PIDs for increased network delay (Figs. 12
2 and 14).
It is also worth mentioning that all issues in networked control
1.5
applications are not essentially process control delays (which
Amplitude

1 might be large but are generally constant). Stochastic delays are

0.5
much harder to deal with and even a small amount of random
stochastic delay in each sampling time can result in system
0
instability even if the system might be stable due to the same
0.5 amount of constant time delay which is not stochastic in nature as
shown by Hirai and Satoh [70]. This implies that a control system
1
designed for the worst case scenario does not necessarily ensure
1.5
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
system stability when the delay varies stochastically between the
Time (sec) upper and lower bounds. The simulated Figs. 1215 show that the
fuzzy logic controller has higher capability of suppressing random
Fig. 11. Controller output for plant P2 with random network delay. variation in network delay in the forward and feedback path.
34 I. Pan et al. / ISA Transactions 50 (2011) 2836

Table 4
Tuning results of fuzzy PID with network delay.
Plant Optimization algorithm Jmin Ke Kd
GA 56.09 0.4165 0.3617 1.6922 0.6183
P1 gbest-PSO 55.6603 0.3487 0.486 1.8778 0.895
lbest-PSO 56.325 0.5709 0.8484 1.1915 0.5034
GA 14.92 1.9299 1.08 1.9199 0.7337
P2 gbest-PSO 14.6336 0.6815 1.0369 0.9233 3.2445
lbest-PSO 14.7689 0.6049 0.8688 1.0554 4.6765

Time Response of Plant P1 with Gradual Increase in Random Network Delay Controller Output of Plant P2 with Gradual Increase in Random Network Delay
1.2 4

3
1

2
0.8
Amplitude

Amplitude
1
0.6
0

0.4
1

0.2
2

0 3
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 0 10 20 30 40 50 60
Time (sec) Time (sec)

Fig. 12. Output of plant P1 with gradual increase in random network delay. Fig. 15. Controller output for P2 with gradual increase in random network delay.

Controller Output of Plant P1 with Gradual Increase in Random Network Delay

10 the controller performance will deteriorate as the sampling time is
increased, as it deviates from the continuous time case to a larger
8
extent. In NCS applications however the sampling time is a design
6
input variable based on the network conditions, since decreasing
4 the sampling time would result in a large number of packets being
2 sent through the network which would result in more network
Amplitude

congestion and increase delays. Real time implementation of

0
such controllers in NCS for process control applications has been
2
reported in [23,71].
4

6
5. Conclusion
8

10 The effect of random delays in NCS has been handled in this

0 10 20 30 40 50 60
paper by using fuzzy PID controllers. Tuning of controllers is
Time (sec)
done by minimizing ITAE and the squared control signal with
Fig. 13. Controller output for P1 with gradual increase in random network delay. three stochastic algorithms viz. the GA, gbest PSO and lbest PSO.
Simulation results indicate that load disturbance suppression with
Time Response of Plant P1 with Gradual Increase in Random Network Delay Fuzzy PID tuned by gbest and lbest PSO is better than that with
1.2
the GA. Also, to nullify the effect of random variation network
delay in the controlled output, the control action with simple
1
PIDs becomes much larger than that with Fuzzy PIDs. The random
network induced delay is then gradually increased and the Fuzzy
0.8
PID controller again shows better performance than a simple
Amplitude

PID controller, especially in load disturbance suppression. Further

0.6 works on the proposed scheme can be directed towards stability
analysis of such controllers in NCS applications. Other future
0.4 investigations may include a performance study of the fuzzy
controller to handle nonlinear processes and considering sensor
0.2 noise and packet drop-outs in the network.

0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 Acknowledgement
Time (sec)

This work has been supported by the Board of Research in

Fig. 14. Output of plant P2 with gradual increase in random network delay.
Nuclear Sciences (BRNS) of the Department of Atomic Energy
Also the controller tuning algorithm presented in this paper is (DAE), India, sanction no. 2009/36/62-BRNS, dated November
offline and is independent of the choice of sampling time. However, 2009.
 I. Pan et al. / ISA Transactions 50 (2011) 2836
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