QUADRUPLE TANK PROCESS CONTROL RESEARCH PLATFORM
This system has various applications such as wastewater treatment, water desalination, pharmaceutical industries, and petrochemical plants. Among the challenging problems is the water level estimation which is needed for controlling the system. The quadruple tanks system consists of the two coupled tanks subsystem. Each of which consists of two translucent tanks, a pump and a water reservoir. The two tanks are mounted on the frame such that flow from the upper tank can flow, through an outlet orifice located at the bottom of the tank, into the lower. Flow from the second tank flows into the main water reservoir. The upper tanks also have another outlet orifice to provide the flow directly to the water reservoir. All outlets have manual valves to control the water flow. Each tank has a pressure sensor to measure the water level. The couplings between the tanks can be modified by the use of three tubes with different diameters (3/8″, 5/16″ and 1/4″) to change the dynamics of the system imposing the use of different controllers. Water is delivered to the tanks by two independently controlled pumps. The flow of each tank can be controlled programmatically from the software. The inlet flow from the pumps can be opened and closed via solenoid valves. The system is designed for researching different control algorithms. It comes with an open-source software allowing the users to develop their algorithms in LabVIEW environment.
