Thermal management of an unloaded hybrid dryer by generalized predictive control

Abstract

International audienceThe temperature control inside a hybrid dryer has always remainedthe main concern in drying applications. At present, the majorityof the drying community researchers use classical controllers tocommand the thermal environment inside the drying chamber. Such acontrol strategy leads to diminish the dryer efficiency and altersthe quality of the dried products. In this regard, the objective ofthis work is to develop an advanced temperature control system forthe thermal management of a hybrid solar-electrical dryer. Inaddition, the proposed system must be convenient, efficient, andaffordable in developing countries. A Generalized PredictiveController (GPC) is designed and validated for temperature controlcovering a wide range of 40 °C–75 °C. Mathematical and identifiedmodels are developed to represent the thermal behavior of thedryer. The identified linear model is used to design the GPCcontroller. This controller has proven great feasibility andeffectiveness by maintaining the chamber temperature with asettling time that remained under 22 min, with a static error of0.5 °C and no overshoot or dips. Moreover, the GPC algorithm isimplemented with an Arduino board which represents an easy, andlow-cost solution for temperature control in drying applications