A Bioinspired Multilayered Intelligent Cooperative Controller for Stretching Process of Fiber Production

The stretching process is one of the key sections in fiber production, which is decisive to the quality of the final fiber products. Such a process raises high requirements on the control of the rollers with proper stretching ratios, and the large number of rollers with their special characteristics and the demand for synchronous running usually make the design of a good control scheme difficult. In this paper, a novel bioinspired multilayered intelligent cooperative controller (BMLICC) is proposed to provide a control plan for the interlinked rollers by organizing them into unified stretching units. Based on the multilayer regulation networks of neuroendocrine system in the human body, a networked controller structure is established. It consists of several components like rollers, distributed controllers, communication paths, and conversion units. The rollers in the same unit can exchange the working information rapidly to implement simultaneous response and cooperation. The stretching ratio can be kept stable and has strong resistance against the external disturbances on the stretching system. Both computer-simulation- and device-based experimental results demonstrate that the stretching unit with the proposed BMLICC can maintain its stretching ratio and effectively resist the external disturbances. This is beneficial to improve the performance of the stretched precursors and, furthermore, produce fibers with high quality. The proposed BMLICC can be easily extended to productions with multiple stretching units or industrial processes with similar mechanical structures for better control quality.