Particle swarm optimization tuned cascade control system in an Internet of Things (IoT) environment

The paper presents the strategies involved in making a stand-alone cascade control system as an Internet enabled one without advent of a dedicated instrument server. The cascaded processes, such as level and flow are independently controlled by particle swarm optimized (PSO) proportional, integral-derivative (PID) and proportional-integral (PI) controller, respectively. The wide area network (WAN) is established wirelessly by using an on-chip Wi-Fi enabled microcontroller, CC3200 that is directly interfaced with level and flow transmitters. The time delays, such as feed forward and feedback that are associated with internet communication are successfully compensated by involving model predictive control (MPC). A private web server is created with adequate data security features to publish and subscribe the real time process data. The web page is enabled with graphical user interface (GUI) that supports real-time plots; control and data logging features. The performance of IoT enabled cascade control system is validated through various metrics, such as rise time, settling time, integral square and integral absolute errors.