An adaptive control system for an industrial tunnel kiln

An adaptive control system for imposing a given temperature profile in the firing zone of a ceramic tunnel kiln is described. The system is composed of a central unit connected to several remote (satellite) controllers by a serial field bus. The central unit performs system identification and synthesis of the control function, and the remote controllers implement the control function. A pole-placement algorithm is used. Several solutions are possible, depending on how the different tasks are distributed among the functional blocks. One of these allows the system to go on operating (although at the cost of the loss of the adaptive characteristic) in the case of a fault in the central unit, as the remote controllers will ensure local control. These solutions are discussed and results pertinent to control system performance, obtained from a reduced-scale version of the kiln, are given.