Fuzzy modelling of a moving grate biomass furnace for simulation and control purposes

Takagi-Sugeno (TS) fuzzy models are developed for a moving grate biomass furnace for the purpose of simulating and predicting the main process output variables, which are heat output, oxygen concentration of flue gas, and temperature of flue gas. Numerous approaches to modelling biomass furnaces have been proposed in the literature. Usually their objective is to simulate the furnace as accurately as possible. Hence, very complex model architectures are utilized which are not suited for applications like model predictive control. TS fuzzy models are able to approximate the global non-linear behaviour of a moving grate biomass furnace by interpolating between local linear, time-invariant models. The fuzzy partitions of the individual TS fuzzy models are constructed by an axis-orthogonal, incremental partitioning scheme. Validation results with measured process data demonstrate the excellent performance of the developed fuzzy models.