Fuzzy-Neural Petri Net Distributed Control System Using Hybrid Wireless Sensor Network and CAN Fieldbus

The reluctance of industry to allow wireless paths to be incorporated in process control loops has limited the potential applications and benefits of wireless systems. The challenge is to maintain the performance of a control loop, which is degraded by slow data rates and delays in a wireless path. To overcome these challenges, this paper presents an application–level design for a wireless sensor/actuator network (WSAN) based on the “automated architecture”. The resulting WSAN system is used in the developing of a wireless distributed control system (WDCS). The implementation of our wireless system involves the building of a wireless sensor network (WSN) for data acquisition and controller area network (CAN) protocol fieldbus system for plant actuation. The sensor/actuator system is controlled by an intelligent digital control algorithm that involves a controller developed with velocity PID-like Fuzzy Neural Petri Net (FNPN) system. This control system satisfies two important real-time requirements: bumpless transfer and anti-windup, which are needed when manual/auto operating aspect is adopted in the system. The intelligent controller is learned by a learning algorithm based on back-propagation. The concept of petri net is used in the development of FNN to get a correlation between the error at the input of the controller and the number of rules of the fuzzy-neural controller leading to a reduction in the number of active rules. The resultant controller is called robust fuzzy neural petri net (RFNPN) controller which is created as a software model developed with MATLAB. The developed concepts were evaluated through simulations as well validated by real-time experiments that used a plant system with a water bath to satisfy a temperature control. The effect of disturbance is also studied to prove the system's robustness.