Control of the Bed Temperature of a Circulating Fluidized Bed Boiler by using Particle Swarm Optimization

Circulating fluidized bed boilers are increasingly used in the power generation due to their higher combustion efficiency and lower pollutant emissions. Such boilers require an effective control of the bed temperature, because it influences the boiler combustion efficiency and the rate of harmful emissions. A Particle-Swarm-Optimization-Proportional-Integrative-Derivative (PSO-PID) controller for the bed temperature of a circulating fluidized bed boiler is presented. In order to prove the capability of the proposed controller, its performances are compared at different boiler loads with those of a Fuzzy Logic (FL) controller. The simulation results demonstrate some advantages of the proposed controller.