Control Engineering Practice 21 (2013) 509–517

Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect

Control Engineering Practice

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/conengprac

Model predictive control of a fluidized bed dryer with an inline NIR

as moisture sensor
Luis Obregón b, Leonel Quiñones a, Carlos Velázquez a,n
a
Pharmaceutical Engineering Research laboratory, Chemical Engineering Department, University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez, Call Box 9000, Mayaguez PR 00681, United States
b
Universidad del Atlántico, Barranquilla, Colombia

a r t i c l e i n f o abstract

Article history: Fluid bed drying and near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy are technologies widely used to dry and measure
Received 15 July 2011 moisture content and other pharmaceutical granular materials’ attributes, respectively. This work
Accepted 6 November 2012 focused on controlling a bench top fluid bed dryer using an industrial control system, the model
Available online 13 December 2012
predictive control (MPC) strategy, and NIR measurements of the moisture content of pharmaceutical
Keywords: powders. The MPC was implemented to reach the desired drying end-point while simultaneously
Fluidized bed dryer manipulating two variables: airflow and inlet air temperature. These two manipulated variables were
Model predictive control constrained based on the physical and chemical behavior of the process. The results showed that the
Process analytical technology use of the MPC with the inline NIR produced an adequate control performance and resulted at the same
Optimization
time in a reduction in energy consumption of as much as 60% in one case when compared with the
Energy reduction
current industrial practices.
& 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction by the diffusion phenomenon that can be enhanced only by

Fluidized bed dryers are units commonly used to remove solvent
or water from powders or granular materials, such as those used in
the pharmaceutical and food industries. These units are operated
either in batch or continuous mode. In either mode, they use a
continuous flow of gas to disperse the powders throughout a
confined space removing any unbound solvent from the surface or
pores of the powders. This dispersion increases the bulk surface area
of the powders, thereby increasing the drying rate and ultimately
resulting in a more efficient process (Mujumdar, 2007).
The drying process, either batch or continuous, is comprised of
two dominant stages: the constant and the falling rates (Wang,
Senior, Mann, &Yang, 2009). In the constant rate period, unbound
solvent or water on the external surface of the particles is removed
by a constant evaporation to the flowing gas producing a constant
decay in moisture content of the powders. The evaporation phe-
nomenon is a proportional function of temperature and speed of the
passing gas (Benitez, 2002) where increments in temperature and
gas speed enhance the mass transfer of the system.
In the falling rate period, water entrapped in pores within
particles or intra-particles diffuses to the external surface where
it gets evaporated by the passing gas; this is a much slower
process than the former (Benitez, 2002). This period is dominated
n
Corresponding author. Tel.: þ1 787 832 4040x2576; fax: þ1 787 834 3655.
E-mail address: carlos.velazquez9@upr.edu (C. Velázquez).
increasing the temperature (Benitez, 2002). The increase in
diffusion, however, is a non-linear function of temperature and
occurs within the confined space of the pores. Therefore, the gas
flow rate has little impact and only takes effect when the
molecule has reached the outer surface of the particles. Further
details about fluid bed drying can be found elsewhere; for
example Mujumdar (2007). The fundamental understanding of
both phenomena could be used in conjunction with an optimiza-
tion technique to drive, accordingly to the current governing
phenomenon, the fluid bed drying to the desired target imple-
menting optimal changes in the gas flow rate and its temperature.
This, by definition, avoids the use of energy beyond the necessary.
Many works have modeled fluid bed drying using first-order
transfer functions (low order models) or completely empirical ones.
Nevertheless, more work is still necessary to find more suitable
models. Alden, Torkington, & Strutt (1988) derived a relationship
between product moisture content and the change in product
temperature. Robinson (1992) proposed another model that relates
the moisture content to both, the temperature drop and the
processing time. Chandran, Rao, and Varma (1990) generated a
specific model for each of the drying rates, the constant and the
falling, that depended on the initial, critical, and equilibrium
moisture content. Temple, van Boxtel, and van Straten (2000) used
low order transfer functions to describe the process, which were
used to improve the controller tuning. Rivera (2006) used transfer
functions to model the drying curves of batch operations at different
operating regions, which confirmed the non-linearity behavior of

0967-0661/$ - see front matter & 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.conengprac.2012.11.002
510 L. Obregón et al. / Control Engineering Practice 21 (2013) 509–517
the fluid bed drying process. In general, low order transfer functions
(representation of differential equations in Laplace domain) provide
simple equations that describe both the steady- and the unsteady-
state behavior of the process variable (in this case, the powder
moisture content) as a function of the manipulated variables,
temperature and air flow in FBD. They also provide sufficient
information to achieve optimization of a process with an adequate
technique (Temple et al., 2000).
Besides the modeling of the moisture content of the powders,
its real time measurement is essential to controlling the FBD
process. As established by Wang et al. (2009), it is necessary to
have inline measurements of the powder moisture content.
Unfortunately, some process variables, such as moisture content,
require phenomena and technologies far more complex than
those required by common variables, such as temperature,
pressure, etc. This need has prompted the development of sensors
based on different fundamentals. One type of sensor (known as
soft sensor) focuses on predicting the control variable based on
readily available measurements. One example is the extended
Kalman filter (EKF) (Li & Duncan, 2008), which uses a model of the
process, such as state space, to predict the control variable. In the
FBD, the EKF would predict the powder humidity. Although it has
been in use for some time, this technique’s performance depends
on the assumptions made during the development and its output
is just an estimate of the process variables. Due to the ever-
present possibility of disturbances not accounted for during the
EKF development, the process variable estimate (and thus the
performance of the control system) can be highly inaccurate
during real operation.
One strategy to avoid this is by using a sensor that directly
measures the process variable. Several examples include electric
capacitance tomography (Wang et al., 2009), triboelectric probes
(Portoghese, Berruti, & Briens, 2008), microwave resonance
(Buschmuller, Wiedey, Doscher, Dressler, & Breitkreutz, 2008),
and Near Infrared Spectroscopy (Rivera, 2004; Roggo et al., 2007).
Among these techniques, near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) pro-
vides great advantages in sample analysis, such as its speed, low
cost, and non-destructive characteristics (Roggo et al., 2007).
Advances in computational power have permitted the use of
these large data-load sensors for inline measurements (Aditya,
Alcala , Jerez-Rozo, Muzzio, & Romañach, 2010; Liew, Karande, &
Heng, 2010; Shia, Cogdillb, Shorta, & Anderson, 2008). However,
most works with NIR still refers to offline applications; therefore,
there is a need to validate the technique for inline control
application.
One of the main interests in the FBD control problem, in the
case of batch operation, is to reach the desired moisture content
(end point) as fast as possible without violating any physical
constraints and thus reducing the energy consumption. This
control target could be achieved using techniques such as Model
Predictive Control (MPC) (Abukhalifeh, Dhib, & Fayed, 2003; De
Temmerman, Dufour, Nicolaı̈, & Ramon, 2009; Didriksen, 2002;
Dougherty & Cooper, 2003; Köni, Yüzgec- , Türker, & Dinc- er, 2009),
Generic Model Control (Li & Duncan, 2008) or Fuzzy Logic
(Atthajariyakul & Leephakpreeda, 2006). Out of these, MPC is
the one most used in industrial applications. It uses a representa-
tive model, such as low order transfer functions, to compute
optimal changes in the inputs, gas flow rate and temperature in
the case of FBD, that would reduce future errors between the
desired value (set point) and the measurements of the control
variable, in this case the moisture content by NIR; see Section 3.2
for more details.
If the target end point were reached as fast as possible with
the implementation of the optimal changes in inputs, the opera-
tion would use the lowest energy possible. Since the typical
industrial applications run the FBD in open loop or with constant
airflow and temperature, this implementation will represent a
reduction in the cost of production. Focusing on this opportunity
to reduce the consumption of energy in fluid bed drying, this
work concentrated on: (1) developing representative transfer
function models to capture the governing phenomena of drying,
(2) validating the use of MPC with clamped inputs and NIR as the
sensor to control a real batch fluid bed dryer with an industrial
control system, and (3) demonstrating the real energy reduction.
The results will show that the MPC manipulated the airflow and
temperature as necessary to achieve the set point (target value) of
the moisture content with an adequate performance and reduced
the energy consumption. The next section describes the equip-
ment, materials, and procedures used in this research. The Results
section presents the NIR validation as an inline sensor, the fitted
process model, and the controller performance with correspond-
ing discussion and conclusion.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Materials
The experiments were performed using lactose anhydrous NF
Direct Tableting, similar to the one used in pharmaceutical
products. This powder was granulated using only distilled water
with a pH range of 5.5–6.5 and conductivity 1.8 ms/cm. The
distilled water was prepared on-site.
2.2. Equipment
The process unit used for the experiments was a fluid bed dryer:
Aeromatic AG STREA 1 model, Fig. 1. It consists of a blower with a
variable speed motor that produces a steady operating range from
55 to 120 m3/h. The air enters through the bottom and exits through
a HEPA filter at the top. It houses an electrical resistance at the
blower exit that enables the heating of the air. The inlet air
temperature was operated in the range from 25 to 100 1C through-
out the entire experiment. The actual heating capacity of the
resistance exceeded the 100 1C but this upper limit was set in order
to protect both the unit and the powders. The power to the
resistance was manipulated by a solid-state relay.
The bowl of the FBD where the powders were placed has a
volume of 16 L with a capacity of handling a maximum of 2 kg of
powders. The airflow rate was set so that the fluidized powders
did not surpass the variable-diameter section of the bowl. If the
powders were not restricted, the internal filter would get clogged
and the operation had to be stopped. The bowl has several side
ports where the NIR probe could be placed for inline measure-
ment. In this study, the probe was placed at 10.2 cm from the
bowl’s bottom. The tip of the NIR probe was placed flush with the
bowl’s wall so that it did not affect the fluidized powders inside
the bowl. A perforated plate is placed at the bottom of the bowl to
help with the distribution of the air so that fluidization problems
are minimized. The dryer was accessorized with two sensors to
monitor the manipulated variables: a thermocouple for tempera-
ture and a differential pressure for airflow.
A Distributed Control System (DCS), Delta V 10.0 controller,
with several communication cards and capability for OPC com-
munication was used for the automation of the FBD. A Dell
OptiPlex 755 computer contained all the commercial software
used throughout the experiments: (1) the CDI Spec32 program,
which was used to obtain NIR spectra by the detector, (2) a
Umetric software SIMCA-Pþ 12.0.1, which was used to prepare
the moisture content predicting model, (3) SIMCA Q, which used
the spectra from Spec32 and the model from SIMCA-Pþ12.0.1
to generate a table of prediction values of the moisture content,
 L. Obregón et al. / Control Engineering Practice 21 (2013) 509–517
and (4) SynTQ Version 3.5 for additional mathematical tools and
communication with the Delta V controller using the OPC
protocol.
The NIR detector used, model NIR 128 Element T.E. Cooled
InGaAs Array, is from Control Development Incorporated (South
Bend, IN). It was configured to scan with a wavelength range from
1107 to 2218 nm. This detector was connected to the computer
Fig. 1. FBD schematic.
Fig. 2. System integration.
511
described above. The speed of response of the NIR was around
2–3 s. The actual moisture content was measured using a Sartorius
MA 35 Loss On Drying (LOD) moisture analyzer. Powder samples of
5 g were used to determinate the humidity of the material inside of
the FBD. The lactose was granulated using an Erweka Gmbh type
SW1/S high shear granulator.
2.3. System integration
The integration (Fig. 2) comprised the connection of the NIR
sensor to the control system using OPC communication and the
control system to the actuators: a variable frequency driver for
the air speed and a solid-state relay for the temperature. The
temperature probe, a standard Resistance Temperature Device
(RTD), and the pressure differential sensor were connected to the
DCS using the standard 4–20 mA signal. Regarding the NIR probe
(sensor), the challenge was to be able to take spectrum data,
analyze it, and predict the moisture content, all in real time.
The current solution is depicted in Fig. 2; the software
(Spec32) was configured using SynTQ to take automatically the
inline NIR spectra, comprised of 50 scans each, with a time frame
for each spectrum of approximately 1 s. Spec 32 was also config-
ured to automatically save the spectra in a specified folder. Then,
SIMCA QP analyzed each spectrum with the NIR model developed
offline using SIMCA-Pþ. SIMCA Q was configured to continuously
scan the specified folder for any spectra saved in it and as it
analyzed the spectra, it generated the predicted values of moist-
ure content. SynTQ sent these values directly to the distributed
control system, Delta V, via OPC communication.
The OPC connection allowed to send current process data of
the air flow and inlet air temperature to the MPC function block in
the Delta V system, which used those values and the current
predicted value of moisture content to compute the optimal
values of the air inlet temperature and speed, which were
implemented until next sampling time. These optimal values
were first passed by the hard constraints logics to avoid any
operational problems. The final clamped values were then imple-
mented by the DCS through two local PID loops.
2.4. Granulation preparation
First, the lactose anhydrous was added to a container where it
was mixed manually with the distilled water. Sufficient solution
was added to reach the initial target moisture content of 11%.
512 L. Obregón et al. / Control Engineering Practice 21 (2013) 509–517
Next, the pre-mixed materials (2 kg in total) were placed in the
high shear granulator, which was operated at 400 rpm for 5 min.
This process produced a granulation with particle sizes ranging
from 200 to 600 mm.
2.5. Drying procedure for process modeling
First, the FBD was conditioned at the desired operating condi-
tions, especially the drying temperature of 60 1C. After condition-
ing the FBD, the airflow was stopped to add 1 kg of the granulated
lactose to the bowl. The bowl with the powder was then placed
back on the FBD and the air turned back on at the desired
conditions of 90 m3/h for the entire drying time. Samples of
powders were withdrawn every 2 min as the drying process
was progressing to measure their moisture content and prepare
the drying curves. At the end of the drying process, all the powder
was withdrawn from the bowl to process another fresh 1 kg of
granulated material. The sample size was maintained at the
smallest possible (5 g) so that the processed mass of powder did
not change substantially as to impact the drying rate.
2.6. Development of moisture prediction NIR model
The model was developed using spectra data of the moisture
content of both static and dynamic samples. The static-sample
NIR spectra provided the isolated effect of moisture content in the
NIR absorbance while the dynamic-sample NIR spectra provided
the composed effect of real factors during the drying operation on
the NIR absorbance.
For the development of the predicting model, 20 dynamic
spectra were obtained while running the FBD right before with-
drawing, at each sampling time, the 5 g sample of the powders for
static analysis. The withdrawn powders were used for static
spectra and LOD analysis. First, 20 spectra of the static powders
were taken and then each sample was placed in the LOD analyzer
to determine the sample moisture content. The data generated
(the 40 static and dynamic spectra and moisture content of each
sample) was added to the SIMCA Pþ, which contains the Partial
Least Square (PLS) model software generator. The data was first
submitted to a PCA analysis followed by a first derivative filtering.
This filtered data was then fitted by the calibration model by the
PLS technique to obtain the NIR calibration model.
2.7. Development of the low order transfer functions
Low order transfer functions (Eq. (1)) describe the steady state
as well as the dynamics of continuous processes (Temple et al.,
2000). During the dynamics period, the dependent variable of an
overdamped stable process varies monotonically from an initial
steady state to a new one. On the other hand, in batch processes
the dependent variable always changes from one value to
another; therefore, the batch FB drying could be seen as the
dynamics period of the continuous drying operation. The specific
assumption is that the continuous FB drying process is suddenly
closed to the powders but the drying gas continuous flowing
causing the humidity content to decrease down to the equili-
brium state. The low order transfer function will no longer be a
function of the inlet or outlet conditions but rather a function
solely of the variables affecting the drying phenomenon: airflow
rate and temperature. Eq. (1) represents such a phenomenological
model where the humidity content (Wp) is affected only by the
airflow rate (Fair,i) and air inlet temperature (Tair,i)
K F K T
WpðsÞ ¼ F ðsÞ þ T ðsÞ
ts þ 1 air,i ts þ 1 air,i
Rewriting Eq. (1) in time domain one obtains (Rivera, 2006)
 
DWpðtÞ ¼  K F DF air,i ðt þ K T DT air,i ðtÞÞð1et=t Þ ð2Þ
where t is the time constant, KF is the gain associated to the
airflow effect, and KT is the gain for the effect of air temperature.
The LOD measurements of moisture content of the withdrawn
samples were used to fit these three parameters. The moisture
content value of several runs along with the corresponding
operating conditions and time was fed to a partial least square
(PLS) algorithm, which fitted the parameters in Eq. (2) to the
raw data.
A limitation in using Eq. (1) to describe the drying curve is that
the parameters are restricted to the conditions used to generate
the drying curve; i.e., the gains are dependent on the initial
moisture content and the equilibrium one and the time constant
on the air flow used. Although if the drying were executed at
other conditions than those used for the fitting, the model would
require only adjustment of the parameters for the new conditions.
Despite this limitation, the transfer functions are adequate, as will
be demonstrated later, for control purposes.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Fitted process model
The fitted parameter values of t, KF and KT are presented in
Table 1. The temperature related gain is the largest, implying a
largest effect of temperature on the drying for the entire process.
This matches the theoretical impact of temperature in the drying,
thus supporting the fitted values. Regarding t, the mass and energy
balances establish that this parameter would be the same for all the
transfer functions. Based on this, the estimation technique was
forced to fit equal values of the time constants for both transfer
functions, although it is understood that experimentally they could
be different. Furthermore, the fitted model balanced the prediction
error between the constant and falling rate, as per the estimation
technique; therefore, it is not capable of precisely predicting the
transition point. In spite of, it is capable of predicting most of the
dynamics. Further work is still necessary to develop a model that
fundamentally matches better the dynamics of a FBD.
The nominal values in Table 1 were the result of the fit of
Eq. (1) to the moisture content of several runs so that the fitted
values averaged the error in LOD measurements. The fitting
process produced average values of SSE¼1.8, R2 ¼0.9784, and
RMSEC¼0.67. Fig. 3 depicts the raw data of a drying curve used
for validation along with the predicted values by Eq. (2) with the
fitted parameters. As can be seen, Eq. (2) was capable of predict-
ing the actual moisture content with a small prediction error.
3.2. Model predictive control implementation
3.2.1. Controller
The Model Predictive Controller (MPC) actions were based on
the control performance index in Eq. (3),
T
J ¼ Eðkþ 1Þ Q Eðk þ1Þ þ DUðkÞT RDUðkÞ ð3Þ
Table 1
Nominal fitted process model parameters.
Parameter Value
KF  0.0768
KT  0.0987
ð1Þ t
491 s
 L. Obregón et al. / Control Engineering Practice 21 (2013) 509–517 513

where
2 3
k1 0 ... 0
6 k2 k1 & ^ 7
6 7
6 7
6
6 k3 k2 & 0 7
7
6 7
K ¼6 ^ & & k1 7
6 7
6 7
6 ^ ... ^ ^ 7
6 7
4 5
kp kp1 ... kðpm þ 1Þ
 
kn ¼ ð1etn =t Þ K F K T

3.2.3. Controller tuning

Fig. 3. Moisture content prediction with fitted low order transfer function
(nominal values) in open loop.
where EðK þ 1Þ is the difference between the reference (step
change in set point in this application) and the model trajectories,
DU is the trajectory of the input changes, and Q and R are the
weight matrices. The dimensions of E(kþ1) is p while Q has
dimensions p  p where p is the prediction horizon, which is the
number of predictions of the process dynamics in the future. The
dimensions of DU, Eq. (4), is rm where m is the control horizon,
which is the manipulated input changes in the future that force
the process response to move to the set point; and r is the number
of inputs, two in this case. The dimension of R is rm  rm
DUðkÞ ¼ ½UðkÞU ðkþ 1Þ. . .U ðk þ m1ÞT
U ¼ ½F air,i T air,i 
The tuning of the MPC controller or Eq. (5) is critical for the
control behavior and data management capacity (Dougherty &
Cooper, 2003). For example, large values of both control horizons
(p) and control moves (m) tend to produce large computational
loads. If this was added to the large data load produced also by
the spectroscopy technique, an error in the system could arise due
to technical limitations.
There exist a series of proposed relationships (Dougherty &
Cooper, 2003), which can be used to establish initial values of the
parameter of an MPC. Table 2 presents the initial values of the
MPC parameters computed using the suggested relationships to
balance controller performance and computational load.
The Q1 and Q2 are the elements of the Q matrix for inputs 1 and 2,
respectively. Although their values were rather small, they were
adequate to compute acceptable control moves. On the other hand,
larger values produced values of the control moves not physically
ð4Þ realizable. Despite, the overall performance, as it will be described
below, was acceptable. The R-value represents the constant in the
diagonal of the R matrix.

The minimization of J at each sampling time produces optimal
control moves, DU(k), of the airflow and temperature for the batch
FBD application that when implemented minimize the error.
Eq. (5) is the un-constrained analytical solution of the control
performance index equation to compute the optimal control
moves
o o
DUðkÞ ¼ ðK T Q K þ RÞ1 K T Q E^ ðkþ 1Þ ¼ K c E^ ðk þ 1Þ
where Ê 1(kþ1) is the error between the reference and the
predicted trajectories of the moisture content and K is the
dynamic matrix with a p  rm dimension.
Eq. (5) was used to compute the optimal values, which were
subjected to the following two physical constraints: (1) air flow over
120 m3/h must be avoided so that the air did not carry the powders
to the filters at the exit of the FBD as flows below 40 m3/h so that
the FBD did not shutdown, and (2) temperatures (over 85 1C) must
be avoided since almost all pharmaceutical ingredients degrade at
those temperatures. The industrial control system allowed the
implementation of these two physical constraints only as clamped
values, which is a limitation of the technology rather than the
technique. The implemented physical constraints read
(1) 40 rF air ðtÞ r120
(2) T air ðtÞ r85
3.3. NIR calibration model
The development of the calibration model based on static and
dynamics data followed Section 2.6. However, the complete
description of the development of the model will be the subject
of a separate paper. Fig. 4 is included though to demonstrate the
accuracy of the NIR in predicting the actual moisture content. The
ð5Þ
diagonal line represents the real values while the symbols
represent the predicted values. The average error of prediction
was 0.25% with an average deviation of 0.04% plus, as it will be
shown later, it was adequate for control purposes.
3.4. Control performance
3.4.1. Control performance with nominal process parameters
Fig. 5 depicts the predicted moisture content of four different
runs under closed loop, and Fig. 6a and b depicts the air flow and
temperature profile implemented for Runs ]1 and ]2, respec-
tively. The final predicted moisture content at any given time is
an average of the last three predictions including the current one.
This was implemented to further decrease the scattering of the
prediction.
Table 2
Nominal values of the MPC tuning parameters.

Parameter Value

3.2.2. Process model m 4

p 9
Eq. (2) (the process model) was further casted in a matrix form,
Q1 4  10  7
described by Eq. (6), to incorporate the process model in Eq. (5) Q2 4  10  6
R 0.3
Wpðk þ 1Þ ¼ K DUðkÞ þ WpðkD Þ ð6Þ
514 L. Obregón et al. / Control Engineering Practice 21 (2013) 509–517
Fig. 4. Validation of predicting NIR model, RMSEP ¼0.05.
Fig. 5. Moisture content profile under MPC closed loop with nominal parameter
values.
The moisture content set point trajectory given to the MPC
was a step change from the initial moisture content to 2%. As can
be seen in Fig. 5 from all four runs, the controller’s configuration
was able to drive the moisture content to the set point of 2%.
Since this is a batch operation, the drying curve had to show a
decreasing monotonic behavior as it did in general; as the
powders could not gain back humidity from the passing gas at
the conditions used. In some instances, however, the humidity
content seemed to increase. This increment is due to the influence
of the fluidization dynamics in the NIR prediction.
Fig. 6a and b includes two samples of the values of airflow and
temperature to achieve the required closed loop control as
computed by the MPC and clamped as necessary (top figure)
and its respective real behavior (bottom figure). The granulated
material used in each run was different, which could have
influenced the difference in the control moves finally implemen-
ted. Note that the values of airflow and temperature were, at all
time, inside the allowable operating space. As can be seen, the
change patterns agreed with the theory; at the beginning during
the evaporation rate, the system established the highest possible
airflow and temperature to promote a faster evaporation rate.
This was similar to the open loop operation. After that, the system
started decreasing those values since the drying at this point was
governed by the diffusion phenomenon. At this point, the drying
rate could not be improved by establishing high values of the two
manipulated variables; hence the decreasing profile.
In Fig. 6a and b, the bottom graphs depict the real values
implemented in the FBD. As can be seen, the airflow patterns in
both cases were the same because of the lag time of the motor or
in other words, the time to establish the desired flow was
negligible. In this case, the PID loop inside the DCS was tuned
for a fast response process. However, in the case of temperature,
the patterns were different. The reason is that the lag time of the
heating device was larger; therefore, it took more time to
implement the values established by the MPC algorithm. In this
case, the PID loop was tuned considering this large lag time,
which required a ‘‘conservative’’ tuning of the PID loop. In
addition, the value of t in the process model was much bigger
than the speed of response of the NIR; therefore, the time delay of
the NIR prediction could be negligible. As can be seen, this did not
cause any stability problems.
Despite the difference in tuning of both PID loops and the
physical limitations of the control moves, the MPC was able to
achieve the moisture content set point. A better design of the
heating mechanism could further improve the overall perfor-
mance of the integrated system.
From the industrial perspective, the implemented profile of
airflow and temperature has an important impact in the manu-
facturing practice. Typically, the industrial approach operates the
fluid bed dryers at the maximum feasible values of gas flow and
temperature without violating any physical constraints. Based on
the phenomena governing the drying, this industrial approach
does not represent the most efficient way of manufacturing as
explained below.
Independently of the operating conditions profile, the opera-
tional energy consumption is comprised of the energy to heat up
the air from its inlet temperature to the operating temperature
plus the energy to supply the air through the FBD chamber. This
can be written as
L_ ¼ F air Cpair ðT o T i Þ þ F air W
_ ð7Þ
where L_ is the total energy consumed per unit time, Fair is the air
volumetric flow as before, Cpair is the specific heat of the air, To
and Ti are the air outlet and inlet temperatures, respectively, with
respect to the FBD heater, and W _ represents the work of the
blower to supply a unit volumetric flow rate of air through the
FBD. From Eq. (7), the profile established by the MPC algorithm
started with a high consumption of energy similar to the indus-
trial current open loop case operation. However, looking at Fig. 6b
for instance, it can be seen that the energy per time started
decreasing as the airflow rate and temperature started decreasing.
Therefore, comparing the energy consumption by the current
open loop operation with the one by the MPC implemented, a
reduction in consumption is obtained. Actually, the decrease in
energy consumption started right after the constant drying region
ended, at which point the diffusion phenomenon started to
dominate the drying process.
Taking Run ]2 as an example for energy reduction calculation,
the target final moisture content was reached around the 250 s;
the air flow started decreasing around 175 s and the temperature
around 125 s. Fig. 7 depicts the energy consumption, as per Eq.
(6), by the open loop operation where both manipulated variables
are typically maintained constant for the entire run and the
energy consumption under closed loop. The energy consumption
by the motor was neglected since it was relatively small com-
pared with the energy consumed by the heating device. For the
open loop case, a constant inlet temperature of 60 1C was
assumed for the entire drying period with 20 1C for the ambient
temperature. For the closed loop case, the computation of energy
was based on the inlet temperature value implemented as per
the experimental data in Fig. 6b (bottom) along with 20 1C as
the ambient temperature. The overall reduction in energy
 L. Obregón et al. / Control Engineering Practice 21 (2013) 509–517
Fig. 6. (a) Inputs: setpoints computed by the MPC (top) and process values applied through the PIDs (bottom), nominal model, Run ]1. (b) Inputs: setpoints computed by
the MPC (top) and process values applied through the PIDs (bottom), nominal model, Run ]2.
Fig. 7. Energy consumption by FBD in open and closed loop operation.
consumption in this case was around 60%, where the major
contributor was the reduction in energy to heat up the airflow.
3.4.2. Control performance with non-nominal model parameters
As has been demonstrated elsewhere, model based control
strategies depend strongly on the accuracy of the models to
predict the dependent variable. The next exercise was to show
that even if there were a slightly change in the formulation, which
would be similar to using different model parameters, the
integrated system would have controlled adequately. This section
compares the performance of the MPC-controlled FBD system
with the nominal model parameters to the one with a different
515
Table 3
Non-nominal value of the MPC tuning
parameters.
Parameter Value
KF  0.05
KT  0.04
t 0.3
Q1 2.43  10  05
Q2 1.15  10  05
R 0.3
set of model parameters of the drying curve. For the comparison,
the values of the constants KF, KT and t, as well as the weight gain
matrices, included in Table 3, were taken from (Rivera, 2006). For
the purpose of comparison, the same powder system was used as
in the previous experiments.
Three runs were performed using these parameters and the
integrated system. The results of moisture content prediction and
control are presented in Fig. 8, while the performance of the MPC
in terms of airflow and temperature is depicted in Fig. 9.
Comparing Fig. 8 with Fig. 5, it can be seen that the system was
able to achieve the desired set point of 2% of moisture content in
both cases, but the nominal case took approximately half of the
time. The dynamic part of the curves shows another difference in
behavior, caused mainly by the behavior of the controller. For the
non-nominal case, the controller favored higher temperatures and
lower airflow rates. The end result was that although the MPC
was able to achieve the desired set point even with the non-
nominal model parameters, the energy consumption was larger
than with the nominal ones. This emphasizes the need of
determining a solid model for the real implementation of advance
control strategies, such as MPC. Fig. 6a and b and 9 show similar
516 L. Obregón et al. / Control Engineering Practice 21 (2013) 509–517
Fig. 8. Moisture content profile under MPC closed loop with non-nominal
parameter values.
Fig. 9. Inputs: setpoints computed by the MPC (top) and process values applied
through the PIDs (bottom), non-nominal model, and Run ]1.
responses of the implemented values of airflow and temperature
to the set points established by the MPC algorithm.
An atypical behavior can be noticed in Run ]1, in terms of the
slope of the curve. In a batch drying process, the powder moisture
content must decrease continuously toward the desired content
(in some cases the equilibrium moisture content). However, in
Run ]1 the curve shows three instances (at the beginning, around
300 s, and around 450 s) where the moisture content prediction
increased. This behavior was not a consequence of the controlled
system but rather the characteristics of the granulation. This
granulation was different from the other cases in terms of the
particle size distribution, a major factor in the fluidization
dynamics. Therefore, it is possible that the wet powders were
not drying homogeneously and at those mentioned instances,
part of the wetter material reached the NIR probe increasing the
prediction. Despite, the overall behavior followed the correct one.
Actually, even though the characteristics of the granulation and
the model parameters were very different to those in the nominal
cases, the MPC was able to drive the drying to the desired final
moisture content.
4. Conclusions
A real control of a FBD with an NIR sensor and the advance
control strategy MPC has been demonstrated. The low order
transfer function model used to represent the drying dynamics
in the MPC strategy worked adequately to permit the MPC to
achieve the desired performance. It was also demonstrated that
this application reduced the energy consumption ( 60% in one
case) when compared with the current industrial open loop
operation. The dynamics of the heating system (i.e., its design)
could have a big impact in the overall performance of the
integrated system. The MPC strategy controlled the process even
when non-nominal model parameters were used in the MPC
configuration but the reduction in energy consumption was
smaller when compared with the operation with the nominal
process parameters. Therefore, real applications of the proposed
scheme do need robust model parameters to maximize the
reduction in energy consumption when compared with the open
loop operation. The goal of controlling the FBD operation with
MPC and an NIR without violating any physical constraint redu-
cing the energy consumption at the same time was achieved and
can be implemented in the industry. Further development in
monitoring of fluid bed drying is necessary to ensure uniform
drying of the powders.
Acknowledgment
The authors appreciate the support of Pfizer Co., the NSF-ERC for
Structured Organic Particulate System (EEC-0540855) and INDUNIV,
a local consortium of industry, government and academia.
References
Abukhalifeh, H., Dhib, R., & Fayed, M. (2003). Predictive control of an infrared-
dryer. Physics and Control, 1, 340–344.
Aditya, U. V., Alcala , M, Jerez-Rozo, J. I., Muzzio, F. J., & Romañach, R. J. (2010). Real-
time monitoring of drug concentration in a continuous powder mixing process
using NIR spectroscopy. Chemical Engineering Science, 65(21), 5728–5733.
Alden, M., Torkington, P., & Strutt, A. C. R. (1988). Control and instrumentation of a
fluid bed dryer using temperature difference technique: I. Development of a
working model. Powder Technology, 54, 15–25.
Atthajariyakul, S., & Leephakpreeda, T. (2006). Fluidized bed paddy drying in
optimal conditions via adaptive fuzzy logic control. Journal Food Engineering,
75, 104–114.
Benitez, J. (2002). Principles and modern applications of mass transfer operations
(First ed.). New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Buschmuller, C., Wiedey, W., Doscher, C., Dressler, J., & Breitkreutz, J. (2008). Inline
monitoring of granule moisture in fluidized bed dryers using microwave
resonance technology. European Journal of Pharmaceutics and Biopharmaceutics,
69, 380–387.
Chandran, A. N., Rao, S. S., & Varma, Y. B. G. (1990). Fluidized bed drying of solids.
AIChE Journal, 36, 29–38.
De Temmerman, J., Dufour, P., Nicolaı̈, B., & Ramon, H. (2009). MPC as control
strategy for pasta drying processes. Computers & Chemical Engineering, 33(1),
50–57.
Didriksen, H. (2002). Model based predictive control of a rotary dryer. Chemical
Engineering Journal, 86, 53–60.
Dougherty, D., & Cooper, D. (2003). A practical multiple model adaptive strategy
for multivariable model predictive control. Control Engineering Practice, 11,
649–664.
 L. Obregón et al. / Control Engineering Practice 21 (2013) 509–517
Köni, M., Yüzgec- , U., Türker, M., & Dinc- er, H. (2009). Optimal quality control of
baker’s yeast drying in large-scale batch fluidized bed. Chemical Engineering
and Processing: Process Intensification, 48(8), 1361–1370.
Li, M., & Duncan, S. (2008). Model-based nonlinear control of batch fluidized bed
dryers. Particle and Particle Systems Characterization, 25, 345–359.
Liew, C. V., Karande, A. D., & Heng, P. W. S. (2010). In-line quantification of drug
and excipients in cohesive powder blends by near infrared spectroscopy.
International Journal of Pharmaceutics, 386, 138–148.
Mujumdar, A. S. (2007). Handbook of industrial drying (third ed.). Florida: Taylor &
Francis Group.
Portoghese, F., Berruti, F., & Briens, C. (2008). Continuous on-line measurement of
solid moisture content during fluidized bed drying using triboelectric probes.
Powder Technology, 181, 169–177.
Rivera, E., 2004. Optimization of drying-end-points measurements for the automation
of a fluid-bed-dryer using FT-NIR spectroscopy. Thesis M.S. University of Puerto
Rico at Mayaguez.
517
Rivera, J., 2006. Optimization of a fluid bed dryer by the implementation of a model
predictive controller. Thesis M.S. University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez.
Robinson, J. W. (1992). Improve dryer control. Chemical Engineering Progress,
28–33.
Roggo, Y., Chalus, P., Maurer, L., Lema-Martinez, C., Edmond, A., & Jent, N. (2007). A
review of near infrared spectroscopy and chemometrics in pharmaceutical
technologies. Journal of Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Analysis, 44, 683–700.
Shia, Z., Cogdillb, R. P., Shorta, S. M., & Anderson, C. A. (2008). Process character-
ization of powder blending by near-infrared spectroscopy: Blend end-points
and beyond. Journal of Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Analalysis, 47, 738–745.
Temple, S. J., van Boxtel, A. J. B., & van Straten, G. (2000). Control of fluid bed tea
dryers: Controller performance under varying operating conditions. Computer
and Electronics in Agriculture, 29, 217–231.
Wang, H. G., Senior, P. R., Mann, R., & Yang, W. Q. (2009). Online measurement and
control of solids moisture in fluidized bed dryers. Chemical Engineering Science,
64, 2893–2902.