PREDICTIVE CONTROL OF A BATCH POLYMERIZATION SYSTEM USING A FEEDFORWARD NEURAL NETWORK WITH ONLINE ADAPTATION BY GENETIC ALGORITHM

Abstract This study used a predictive controller based on an empirical nonlinear model comprising a three-layer feedforward neural network for temperature control of the suspension polymerization process. In addition to the offline training technique, an algorithm was also analyzed for online adaptation of its parameters. For the offline training, the network was statically trained and the genetic algorithm technique was used in combination with the least squares method. For online training, the network was trained on a recurring basis and only the technique of genetic algorithms was used. In this case, only the weights and bias of the output layer neuron were modified, starting from the parameters obtained from the offline training. From the experimental results obtained in a pilot plant, a good performance was observed for the proposed control system, with superior performance for the control algorithm with online adaptation of the model, particularly with respect to the presence of off-set for the case of the fixed parameters model.