Hierarchical Intelligent Control System and Its Application to the Sintering Process

This paper presents a hierarchical intelligent control system (HICS) based on soft-sensing of burn-through point(BTP) and vertical sintering speed (VSS) for the sintering process, which has a two-level hierarchical configuration (intelligent control level and basic automation level), and is being used in an iron and steel plant. At the intelligent control level, first, BTP and VSS soft-sensing models are established, respectively. Next, the BTP mechanical control model and fuzzy controller are designed. The basic automation level contains a distributed control system (DCS), which performs process control including stable tracking control of the strand velocity; and a communication interface, which enables the intelligent controller and the DCS to exchange data on process information. The real-world application results show that the system not only sufficiently suppresses the fluctuation, but also effectively improve the utilization factor of the sintering machine and the quality and quantity of the sinters.