PLC-based Automatic Control of Food Production Line

Standard programmable logic controller (PLC) based proportional-integral-derivative (PID) was originally employed as part of the food production line control strategy, but after observing the response of those process due to measured disturbances during normal operation, it was evident that PID control could not meet the desired cooking specifications. It was decided to pursue advanced process control strategies as a means to meet the food production specifications. The problem of this research study was to design and analyze the performance of a PLC-based model state feedback controller implementation for an industrial food production line, and to determine its viability in comparison to commercially available PC-based model predictive controller implementations applied to food production line.