A self-tuning adaptive control applied to an industrial large scale ethanol production

In this work, a multivariable adaptive self-tuning controller (STC) was dev eloped for a biotechnological process application. Due to the difficulties involving the measurements or the excessive amount of variables normally fo und in industrial process, it is highly recommended to develop 'soft-sensor s' which, in this work, were based fundamentally on artificial neural netwo rks (ANN). These methods are especially suitable for the identification of time-varying and nonlinear models. An advanced control strategy based on ST C was applied to a fermentation process to produce ethanol (ethyl alcohol) in industrial scale. The reaction rate considered for substratum consumptio n, cells and ethanol productions are validated with industrial data for typ ical operating conditions. Tho results obtained show that the procedure pro posed in this work has a great potential for application. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.