Expert Control of Vacuum Pan

Crystallization
Jan Michal, Milo5 Kminek, and Pave1 Kminek
acuum pan crystallization
difficult to control by classi-
cal means. This paper pre-
sents a method of using a
rule-based expert system for
the control of such a process.
The structure of the expert
controller for adjusting the
characteristic conductivity is
shown to consist of a diagnos-
tic expert system and a dis-
crete dynamic model that is
used for conversion of seman-
tic results into numeric output
values. The expert controller
was implemented in the sugar
factory in Lovosice in cam-
paign 1993.
v. is a process that is very
Introduction
Crystallization process is
the key stage of sugar produc-
tion. The basic goal of the
vacuum pan operation is to
produce sugar crystals of a
specified size from a solution Battery of vacuum pans (sugar facto
containing sugar and non-
sugars. A typical vacuum pan with the instrumentation is shown
on Fig. 1. At the beginning of every individual batch the vacuum
is established and the crystallization pan is filled with juice and
syrup until the level is above the calandria into which the steam
is introduced. Low pressure exhaust steam from previous evapo-
ration stages is used to boil the juice in a vacuum pan. The syrup
is then boiled down, increasing the density and the supersatura-
tion of the syrup. Performing the operation in a vacuum allows
the water to be evaporated at a lower temperature, thereby
reducing the quality of required steam while minimizing the
formation of color in the growing crystals at the same time.
The composition of the feed to the pan is characterized by its
brix and its purity. Brix is the ratio of dissolved solids to the total
mass of solution while purity is the ratio of the amount of sucrose
to the total mass of dissolved solids. The purity affects the
A version of this article was presented at the 1993 IEEE Intema-
tional Conference on Svstems, Man, and Cybemetics. The authors
are with the Department of Computing and Control Engineering,
Institute of Chemical Technology, Technicka 5, 166 28 Praha 6, The
Czech Republic. Email: jan.michal@ vscht.cz.
try in Lovosice).
solubility of the sucrose and thus the amount of sucrose required
to have a saturated solution. For crystallization to occur the
solution must be supersaturated. The precise effects of purity on
saturation depend on the particular impurities, which are affected
by the quality of the sugar beet and its origin and which vary as
the campaign progresses. Once the correct supersaturation has
been reached the pan is seeded. This is done by introducing a
small amount of fixed quality seed crystals. The sugar juice then
begins to crystallize around these seed crystals, causing themto
grow. This suspension of sugar crystals is known as massecuite.
Once the grain is established the syrup feed is controlled to
increase the pan level and maintain the desired supersaturation
of the mother liquor. When the pan is full there is a period of
brixing up in which water is further evaporated with no additional
feed. Finally the vacuum is broken and the pan is discharged to
the receiver for centrifuging.
Control Strategy
The crystallization process control should guarantee the high-
est possible speed of crystal growth at the lowest energy con-
sumption. Early vacuum pans did not have a system of automatic
0272- 1708/94/$04.0001994IEEE IEEE Control Systems
28
-
control; the operator drove the process using experience gained
over many years. Control actions and decisions were based on
practical knowledge, rules of thumb, intuitive feelings and some
other mysterious methods. He relied upon visual observation of
the crystals glittering, which could be seen through the vacuum
pan window, on the transparency of the juice sample observed
on the piece of glass, and on the speed of its flow. The only
measured values were temperature and pressure in thepan. It is
no wonder that operators were considered to bethe most impor-
tant people in the sugar factory.
The main difficulty associated with the crystallization control
is in measuring of the parameters which weare trying to control.
There is no direct method of measurement of the supersaturation
of the liquor, nor of the crystal content in the pan. Today the
automation of the crystallization process is based on finding the
supersaturation indirectly-in most cases by measuring electri-
cal conductivity of the solution as the cheapest method. It has
been discovered that conductivity is an indication of the extent
of supersaturation; however, this way of measurement is far from
precise as conductivity is strongly influenced by the amount of
non-sugars in the solution. The relation between supersaturation
and conductivity is therefore changing during the campaign,
making a simple controller unusable. Crystallization in the vac-
uumpan is a batch process usually controlled by a programmable
logic controller with a few analogue control loops. Not only is
there sequence control on the odoff valves but the continuous
control loops themselves are subjected to sequentially controlled
changes.
There are four key stages during the process which influence
the final result: boil down, seed, feed and brix-up. At the boiled
down stage the supersaturation must bereached as fast as possible,
which means the steam valve must befully opened while the syrup
level in the pan is controlled by the feed valve. As soon as the
correct supersaturation has been reached the seed stage follows.
The correct supersaturation of the solution when the seeds are
introduced is very important, otherwise the seed crystals are
dissolved (supersaturation is too low) or a spontaneous nucleate
crystallization occurs (supersaturation is too high). In the feed
stage, the juices crystallize around the seed crystals decreasing the
supersaturation, in the same time water evaporation increases the
vacuum
I
seed crystals
sugar crystals +mother liquor
1 strike receiver 1
Fig. 1. Vacuum pan for sugar crystallization.
October 1994
supersaturation. The juice and syrup feeds are controlled to main-
tain the supersaturation of the mother liquor in the predefined
range for which the crystals grow at maximumspeed. An inter-
rupted feed is used to help proper mixing of the juice which is very
important in this stage. The massecuite level in the pan increases
until the pan is full. In the brix-up stage water is further evaporated
until a predetermined final density of massecuite is reached.
Typical diagrams ofconductivity and level in thepan are shown
in Fig. 2. Characteristic values of seed, feed and brix-up conduc-
tivity are shown there. During the feed stage the conductivity
oscillates between two different values as the feed is interrupted.
The larger the amplitude of the oscillation, the better is the mixing
of the massecuite and thereby the small crystals are dissolved (but
the large ones last). The conductivity based control has several
drawbacks. It depends on the impurities and content of non-sugars
that are affected by the soil in which the beet was grown and
condition under which the beet is maintained and stored. They
vary fromregion to region and from year to year. The presence of
sugar crystals in the solution and its mixing affects the electrical
path length and thus the conductivity. The process can be satisfac-
torily controlled only under the condition that all conductivity
parameters are well adjusted reflecting the actual relation between
supersaturation and conductivity. They are: seed conductivity,
conductivity limits which create the envelope of the conductivity
oscillations in the feed stage and final brix-up conductivity. Much
skill and experience are required to set these parameters, which is
why the quality of control varies fromshift to shift according to
the ability of the operator to adjust the parameters.
Expert Control
Expert systems show promise in solving control problems for
complex systems. As the complexity of technological processes
increases, the problem of their control becomes more critical. In
this work wefocused our attention on a technological process
whose behavior is very difficult to define due to the number of
conductivity
pol I boil down
F-+l
loo H I
1 seed
feed
brix-up
- _
- - _
- _
-..
- _
I I I I I I
1 2 3 4 5 time [hours]
o v "
1 2 3 4 5 time [hours]
Fig. 2. Typical diagrams of conductivity and level in the
crystallization pan.
29
rule plane
I I
Fig. 3. Expert controller structure.
nonlinearities and parameters that are impossible or difficult to
estimate. In this case, classical feedback control cannot be used.
One of the reasons is the difficulty in expressing the desired
behavior of the process in terms of conventional control theory
and classical design specifications. Crystallization in a vacuum
pan is a process characterized by the above mentioned condi-
tions, so that expert control presents itself as a viable alternative
to classical control methodologies.
In general the expert control of technological processes oper-
ates according to rules that are based on:
thorough knowledge about the construction and instrumen-
tation of the controlled system, and
intuitive knowledge based on the operators experience
(rules of thumb).
Both thorough knowledge and intuition can beexpressed by
semantic rules as well as by mathematical formulas, which allow
us to express almost any desired fact about the properties of the
controlled system and its behavior. This information is concen-
trated in a knowledge-base, which typically consists of two parts
(Fig. 3). One part of the knowledge-base is a semantic net; it
consists of the statements and rules (rule plane). A priori
probability values are assigned to all statements, indicating how
likely it is that the fact is true. Every rule links two statements
together, an evidence to a hypothesis. The strength of the link is
given by two conditional probabilities, determining the power of
the rule. All probability values are specified by the expert during
the knowledge-base construction and reflect the uncertainty of
the system. The deterministic data are related by mathematical
formulas or other algorithms, creating a parallel plane of the
expert system (data plane). Some facts in the rule plane can
trigger computation of relevant algorithms and update the nu-
merical values in the data plane, finally resulting in the value of
the controller output. Some data, on the other hand, influence the
probability values and logical conditions in the semantic net.
Creation of the knowledge-base structure for expert control
can bedivided into three stages.
In the first stage, input data is examined fromdifferent points
of view. The starting evidences are the input data of actual values
of several-but not necessarily all-process variables. This
knowledge is obtained by means of direct or indirect measurement
orAspecially in the food industry-by means of subjective
human observation such as vision, smell or taste. The intermediate
hypotheses, that are to be proven at this stage, concern properties
of the input variables. According to the input data, the a priori
probabilities of these hypotheses are modified during the expert
system run to reflect the actual stage of the system. Computation
routines may beactivated at some nodes of the semantic net to
evaluate formulas expressing deterministic relation among data.
The expert control strategy is derived from the fact that the
control rule can be expressed for some surrounding of its present
state, however complicated the system behavior may be. The
state space of the controlled process can be divided into smaller
parts or domains. The selection of the domains and their borders
is done so the control rule can be expressed by a simple formula.
The domains can overlap and the borders between the domains
can be fuzzy.
The second stage of the control starts with the proven hy-
potheses from the first stage. Its task is to find out the domain of
the present state of the controlled system. All final hypotheses of
the second stage have the same form: The present state of the
system is in domain D:. The differences in the probabilities
encountered in several succeeding runs will show the tendency
of the controlled system behavior.
The last stage of the expert control must find out how to
influence the system in order to follow the desired trajectory in
the state space considering all criteria and limitations. It has been
assumed it was possible to determine the control rule in every
domain Di of the state space. Thus, the control rule is known for
each final hypothesis.
Now a decision is made as to which control rule will be
applied. There are several possible strategies to determine the
value of the manipulated variable of the controlled process. The
simplest possible strategy is to apply the value Ui that is associated
with the most probable final hypothesis. However, this strategy
neglects the influence of the other final hypotheses with smaller
but still comparable probability. It can lead to bang-bang control
as a small change in input data can cause other final hypotheses
to win and hence cause quite a different output to be applied.
Another strategy is based on a weighted average. In this case all
final hypotheses contribute to the value of manipulated variable
according to their final probabilities. The control is smoother in
this case. Yet other strategies use more sophisticated formulas to
determine the output value. The relation between the final hy-
pothesis and the output value can beexpressed by means of a
linear discrete model with multiple inputs:
I
inference knowledge
engine
final
conductivity j
[ - )
Fig. 4. Expert controller f or tuning the parameters of the
conductivity control.
30 IEEE Control Systems
where
aj,bij are coefficients of the model,
pi(k) is the probability of the final hypothesis Hi in discrete
time k,
u(k) is the output value in discrete time k
r is the number of final hypotheses
Transforming the probabilities of final hypotheses into ma-
nipulated values by dynamic models can bring some careful-
ness into the expert controller as the history is considered.
However, proper tuning of the coefficients might be difficult.
In all cases either the absolute value of the manipulated
variable-position control--or a change of the manipulated vari-
able in one control stepspeed control-is calculated. The
creation of the knowledge-base structure is influenced by the
strategy chosen in the second stage. In some cases the weighted
average control may reduce the number of final hypotheses.
Vacuum Pan Expert Control
The simple control of the crystallization process in the vac-
uumpan by means of a logic controller based on conductivity
measurement did not get satisfactory results as there were too
many uncertainties, nonlinearities and heuristics. On the other
hand, a good control of this process would increase the perform-
ance of the boiling house, and its economical importance is
therefore far fromany doubt. That is why we have decided to
improve present control of the vacuum pan by implementing
expert control ideas.
In present control the main difficulty is to adjust the charac-
teristic parameters: seed conductivity, lower and upper conduc-
tivity limits for feed stage and final brix-up conductivity,
operators set the parameter values according to their experience.
There is no simple algorithm as to how to achieve a particular
effect, which is why the expert control seems to bethe right tool
for this task. The structure of the expert controller is shown in
Fig. 4. The knowledge base has three parts-for seed, for feed
and for brix-up. At the end of each stage or any time the operator
SattBus
laboratory operator
Fig. 5. Block structure of the control system.
October 1994
vacuum pan
expert
control
asks, the expert controller is activated to evaluate the process and
to change parameters, if necessary. The inference engine per-
forms the consultation using the quantitative results from the
laboratory analysis and the qualitative subjective evaluation of
the process, made by the operator, as the input evidence. The
operator answers several questions concerning the amount and
size of crystals, density of the juice, presence of the false grain
and consistency of the final product. All questions require only
quantitative answers. The inference engine checks the rules in
the knowledge base and derives the final hypothesis. The result
of the consultation is an assertion concerning the state of the
process. The assertion is connected with a probability value
which is a measure of reliability. The knowledge base is relatively
simple and was created with help of experts in sugar boiling. The
second part of the expert controller is the dynamic discrete model
which is used for converting the probabilities of the final hy-
potheses into the actual value of the controlled parameter.
A model where m=n=2 has been chosen (1) and the following
strategy is used to find its coeficients. At the beginning of the
campaign the expert controller is switched into the teach mode
and a skilled operator or an expert adjusts the characteristic
conductivity according to the suggested hypothesis of the expert
system. The probabilities of final hypotheses evaluate the state
of the process for the particular case. Skilled operator actions are
used for on-line identification of coefficients of the discrete
dynamic model. The identification needs several successive runs
of the controller for a reliable estimation of the coefficients. As
soon as the coefficients are determined the expert controller can
be switched to work mode. The values of the characteristic
parameters are then calculated from the final hypotheses using
the identified model. The experience of the skilled operator, how
to react to a particular situation, is recorded in the coefficients of
the dynamic model and in the work mode it is used for process
control. At any time the control seems not to operate properly the
teaching procedure can berepeated.
Practical Implementation and Results
The above described control of a crystallization process was
implemented and tested in a sugar factory in Lovosice in the
Czech Republic in 1993 in close cooperation with the computer
control company Projectsoft. The hardware of the control system
is based on the Alfa-Lava1 SattControl OP-45SB controller that
communicates in the SattBus protocol with an operators PC. The
results from the laboratory are transmitted to the expert system
via SattBus as well (Fig. 5) .
The software is based on an empty expert system-EL-EX-
PERT-which is a rule-based expert system originally dedicated
for diagnostic purposes. The knowledge base has the form of a
net where nodes represent the statements and branches corre-
spond to the rules. Every rule defines a causal relation between
two statements: a premise (an evidence) and a conclusion (a
hypothesis). Uncertainties of the statements and rules are ex-
pressed by the probabilities. The state of the crystallization pan
is, at any time, described by a set of statements, each of which is
associated with the immediate probability representing the grade
of its validity. As soon as some input facts have changed, the
inference engine recalculates the probabilities of all other state-
ments according to the rules in the knowledge base and their
conditional probabilities. The calculation is based on Bayes rule:
31
- - - - - - - -. - - - - - - -
INPUT EVIDENCE I
laboratory operators ,
anal ysi s evaluation
/, / \ I
\ I /,
seed hypotheses feed hypotheses brix-up hypotheses
PO the purity difference 8 the brix
AC the amount of crystals inthe pan DC the presence of dust crystals
DM the density 01 massecuite SP the diniculty in separation
PDN the purlty difference is negative
PDP the purlty difference is positive
W H the amount of dust crystals IS very high
DZ the amount of dust crystal is zero HS the supersaturation is high
LS the supersaturation is I HC the conductivity limits are high
PDZ the purity difference is zero
892 the brix IS 92
OH the amount of dust crystals 15high
NC
HD
LC
LD t hedens
the conductivity limits are low
Fig. 6. An example of the experi control knowledge base structure.
P
90 91 92 93 94
Brix I/.]
Fig. 7. Conversion function for a statement brix is 92.
where P H ( E) , pH ( E) are conditional probabilities of the evi-
dence given that the hypothesis H has occurred or not, respec-
tively. Equation ( 2) can berearranged at:
represents the posterior odds that gives us the measure of how
likely the hypothesis H occurs provided the evidence E was
proven, o ( H) =pO is the odds of H (it is another way how to
P (77)
express the a priori probability of the hypothesis H), and
L ( E, H) =p H is the likelihood ratio of E with respect to H,
expressing the strength of the rule connecting the evidence E with
the hypothesis H. The bigger L is, the more important is the
evidence E for proving the hypothesis H. For L=l the fact E has
no effect on the posterior odds OE ( H) .
If more than one evidence Ei influences the hypothesis H, the
likelihood ratio is given as a product of L(Ei,H) for all i provided
Ei are statistically independent. Equation (3) is the modus ponens
version for probabilistic reasoning.
Such a reasoning is used in the semantic rule plane to derive
the actual state of the process. The knowledge base has less than
100 rules. In Fig. 6 a simplified structure (the intermediate
hypotheses of the knowledge base are not drawn) of the vacuum
pan knowledge base is depicted. In this figure an example of
starting evidences and final hypotheses is given. There are two
types of input evidences: laboratory analysis in a formof numeric
values and operators evaluation in the form of qualitative an-
swers. Numeric values fromthe laboratory analysis are converted
to the probability of the input evidence by a function defined
during the knowledge base construction (Fig. 7). The knowledge
base engineer must define the conversion function in order to
reflect the meaning of the input variable that is used in the rules.
For example, there is a conversion function for the statement
brix is 92 in Fig. 7.
The second type of the input evidence are the questions given
to the operator. The questions must be simple and well formed;
for instance:
What is the amount of crystals in the pan at the moment? [few
... many]
Are there any dust crystals?
The separation of crystals in the centrifuge is OK?
What is the density of massecuite at the brix-up stage? [low
... high]
The operator answers these questions by a number in a range
[-5, 5] which is interpreted by the expert system and converted to
the probability of the fact. There are two types of questions: for
the first one, answer 5 means yes, I am sure the fact is true,
answer 0 means I dont know and answer -5 means no, I am
sure the fact is false. In the other type the operator is given an
interval of the value and answer 5 means the upper limit of the
interval, answer 0 means the center and answer -5 the lower limit
of the interval. The interval need not bespecified in numerical
values but also in a verbal form. All values between in both types
have a corresponding meaning expressing the operators convic-
tion.
To create the knowledge base, input facts must be combined
to form the final hypotheses. They are formulated in such a way
so as to classify the state space domain where the control law can
be defined. Some intermediate hypotheses are to be defined as
well, making it possible to create the chain of rules connecting
the input facts with the final hypotheses. There is no detailed
algorithm for how to create the knowledge base structure. In our
application wehave collected knowledge concerning the sugar
crystallization and formulated the final hypotheses. At the same
time the necessary inputs were defined.
The rules were combined to formthe meaningful knowledge
base structure and to formulate the intermediate hypotheses. In
PH ( E)
32 I EEE Control Systems
expert systems working with uncertainties the knowledge base
priori probability and every rule must possess a likelihood ratio
that expresses its strength. Usually there is no reason to prefer
any intermediate hypothesis in advance, which is why the apriori
probabilities of all nodes were set to 0.5. A much more difficult
problem is to set the likelihood ratios of the rules. For L=l the
rule has no effect; if L>100 the rule supports the hypothesis
categorically; if L<O.O 1 the rule refuses the hypothesis categori-
caliy. The actual likelihood ratio must be set within these limits
structure is not sufficient. Every hypothesis must be assigned a
according to the experience of the knowledge engineer, where
usually some tests and simulations are necessary. The inference
engine applies the rules and recalculates the probability of all
October 1994
automatic control time[hours] manual control
.
. .
A - level B- conductivity A - level B- conductivity
33
[5] H.B. Verbruggen, A.J . Krijgsman and P.M. Bruijn, Towards Intelligent
Control, Journal A, vol. 32, no. I , pp. 35-45, 1991.
[6] H.B. Verbruggen, and K.J. Astrom, Artificial Intelligence and Feedback
Control Proceedings of the2nd IFAC Workshop on Artificial Intelligence
in Real-time Control, China, pp. 115-125, September 1989.
[7] K.J . Astrom, J. J. Anton and K.E. Arzen, Expert Control Auromarica,
vol. 22, no. 3, pp. 277-286, 1986.
to the supervisory e
Jan Michal was bomin 1949 in Prague, Czechoslova-
kia. Hestudied Computer Science at the Czech Techni-
cal University in Prague, faculty of Electrical
Engineering, where he got the Ph.D. degree in 1977.
Since 1976 he is at the Department of Computing and
Control Engineering at thePrague Institute of Chemical
Technology in the position of Senior Lecturer. In re-
search he focused his attention to the application of
computer control in technological processes, especially
xpert control.
Milo; Kminek was bomin 1941 in Prague. He studied
at the Prague Institute of Chemcal Technology and
graduated in 1963. He has got his Ph D. degree in 1979.
In 1990 he was appointed the associate professor at the
Department of Computing and Control Engineering. In
his research work he is concentrated on modelling and
control of technological processes in food technologies,
especially in the field of practical applications in the
food industry Dunng last years he has focused his
attention to the advanced supervisory control systems using mathematical
models and expert systems and their applications in sugar industry
Pave1 Kminek was bomin 1966. He studied at the
Institute of Chemical Technology in Prague, Czech
Republic, where he graduated at the Department of
Computing and Control Engineering in 1989. Now he
is a Ph.D. student at the same department. The topic of
his work is focused on using expert systems in real-time
process control both in simulation and in practice.
34
IEEE Control Systems