Control of TAME reactive distillation using Non-Dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm-II

The control system performs poor in characteristics and even it becomes unstable, if improper values of the controller tuning constants are used. So it becomes necessary to tune the controller parameters to achieve good control performance with the proper choice of tuning constants. Many control problems involve simultaneous optimization of multiple variables that competing with each other. In this paper, the Non-Dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm-II (NSGA-II) has been successfully applied to optimization of dynamic state of t-amyl-methyl-ether (TAME) reactive distillation process. This paper presents the tuning of Proportional–Integral–Derivative (PID) controllers by minimizing of two objective functions (overshoot and Integral of Absolute Error (IAE)) through the NSGA-II. Results show that genetic algorithm is more suitable method for optimal control of the TAME reactive distillation columns than traditional methods such as Tyreus–Luyben.

► The NSGA-II has been successfully applied to optimization of dynamic state of TAME reactive distillation process.
► Control engineering problems very seldom require the optimization of a single objective function.
► A MATLAB code as interface is used for linking of the NSGA-II and HYSYS simulation package.
► Simulation results show proposed optimization method based on the NSGA-II provides good controller coefficients value.