Development of IoT based Heat Exchanger Control Trainer for Undergraduate Process Control Programme

Abstract

Heat exchanger control trainer is a device that helps to demonstrate process control of process variables and simulates real world industrial plant system whereas the implementation of Internet of things (IoT) technology allows wireless communication. This paper describes a work to develop an IoT based heat exchanger control trainer for undergraduate process control programme with the implement Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) controller and fuzzy logic controller into the control trainer system together. The work started up with the development of graphical user interface (GUI) for the control trainer followed by the construction and coding of the control trainer prototype. The work has developed a heat exchanger control trainer GUI with PID and fuzzy logic controller. Information was able to be transmitted wirelessly between the GUI and control trainer prototype using Wi-Fi modules. The tested maximum signal strength was -90 dBm in 50 m when connected to indoor Wi-Fi router.  The control trainer was able to achieve simple temperature feedback control of the cold side of the heat exchanger. The user manual included the basic user guide of the developed control trainer user interface. Kp, Ki, Kd of Ziegler-Nichols tuning method obtained in Offline case studies are 90,18, 112.5 whereas 7.2009, 1.1473, and 7.3163 for Cohen-Coon tuning method. The Offline test result shows a better accuracy of control using the fuzzy logic controller with -0.07% of steady-state error. Further improvement could be made to by adding cooling system into the control trainer prototype and apply modern techniques in the GUI control systems.