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Engineering >> Industrial & Management Systems

Overflow? Oh no!

by Nuntawatt Vongsavanh

Submitted : Fall 2016

A starting company Hydro Technologies, is looking to automate their process for moving water into another tank. The filtered water flows into the disinfectant tank and from there it goes to the storage tank. Their goal is to have the disinfectant tank drain automatically once it reaches 9,500 gallons to ensure it does not overflow. The company also wants flexibility on changing drain points for the tank. The most efficient and economical solution to this is to implement the use of a PID controller, but the controller cannot apply our desired actions without being “told” what to do and when to perform the actions. For the actions to be fulfilled, there needs to be an algorithm the controller follows. With the correct algorithm implemented, the controller will be able to fulfill desired actions when necessary. To make the controller work, a software engineer will write the algorithm using the function for a PID controller, the function breaks down into code where the writer can edit values as necessary to make the solution specific to the problem. When a desired value is input, it goes through the algorithm which in short is the “partial integral derivative” process one could say. The end result of the process is known as the output, the output is the solution to the problem and it could be an action or in other cases a desired value. Conclusions drawn from this are that PID controllers themselves are universal, but to have it perform efficiently it requires the algorithm for it to be functional.

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	Advisors :
	Arcadii Grinshpan, Mathematics and Statistics

	Joe Kerkes, Nielsen Media Research

	Suggested By :
	Nuntawatt Vongsavanh