Design of Soft Computing Based Optimal PI Controller for Greenhouse System

Greenhouse system (GHS) is the worldwide fastest growing phenomenon in agricultural sector. Greenhouse models are essential for improving control efficiencies. The Relative Gain Analysis (RGA) reveals that the GHS control is complex due to 1) high nonlinear interactions between the biological subsystem and the physical subsystem and 2) strong coupling between the process variables such as temperature and humidity. In this paper, a decoupled linear cooling model has been developed using a feedback-feed forward linearization technique. Further, based on the model developed Internal Model Control (IMC) based Proportional Integrator (PI) controller parameters are optimized using Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) to achieve minimum Integral Square Error (ISE). The closed loop control is carried out using the above control schemes for set-point change and disturbance rejection. Finally, closed loop servo and servo-regulatory responses of GHS are compared quantitatively as well as qualitatively. The results implicate that IMC based PI controller using PSO provides better performance than the IMC based PI controller using GA. Also, it is observed that the disturbance introduced in one loop will not affect the other loop due to feedback-feed forward linearization and decoupling. Such a control scheme used for GHS would result in better yield in production of crops such as tomato, lettuce and broccoli.