Fuzzy control of the start-up phase of the food extrusion process

In this paper, a fuzzy control system is proposed to improve the start-up procedure of a food extrusion process generally based on the principle of the inverse relation between the screw speed and the torque. The proposed control structure consists of three control loops connected in a parallel configuration using multiple-input, single-output (MISO) Takagi–Sugeno–Kang (TSK) fuzzy controllers, which monitor the screw speed, the bulk feed rate and the water input rate in a highly coordinated way, such as the start-up is performed quickly and without screw blockage. The fuzzy control system was carried out through experiments on corn starch.