Available online at www.sciencedirect.

com

Journal of the Franklin Institute 349 (2012) 162183

www.elsevier.com/locate/jfranklin

Identication of cement rotary kiln using hierarchical

wavelet fuzzy inference system
A. Sharia,n, M. Aliyari Shoorehdelib, M. Teshnehlabc
a
Department of Computer, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
b
Mechatronic Department, KNT University of Technology, Tehran, Iran
c
Electrical Engineering Department, KNT University of Technology, Tehran, Iran
Received 8 October 2010; received in revised form 8 June 2011; accepted 17 October 2011
Available online 25 October 2011

Abstract

Rotary kiln is the central and the most complex component of cement production process. It is used to
convert calcineous raw meal into cement clinkers, which plays a key role in quality and quantity of the
nal produced cement. This system has complex nonlinear dynamic equations that have not been
completely worked out yet. In conventional modeling procedure, a large number of the involved
parameters are crossed out and an approximation model is presented instead. Therefore, the performance
of the obtained model is very important and an inaccurate model may cause many problems for
designing a controller. This study presents hierarchical wavelet TS-type fuzzy inference system (HWFIS)
for identication of cement rotary kiln. In the proposed method, wavelet fuzzy inference system (WFIS)
with two input variables is used as sub-model in a hierarchical structure and gradient descent (GD)
algorithm is chosen for training parameters of antecedent and conclusion parts of sub-models. The results
show that the proposed method has higher performance in comparison with the other models. The data
collected from Saveh White Cement Company is used in our simulations.
& 2011 The Franklin Institute. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

The three basic processes in a cement production plant are: grinding and homogenization
of the raw material mix, baking of the mix in a kiln, and grinding of the nished product.

n
Correspondence to: SRBIAU, Poonak, Hesarak, Tehran, Iran. Tel.: 98 912 1547269; fax: 98 21 88462066.
E-mail addresses: a.shari@srbiau.ac.ir (A. Shari), m.aliyari@eetd.kntu.ac.ir (M. Aliyari Shoorehdeli),
teshnehlab@eetd.kntu.ac.ir (M. Teshnehlab).

0016-0032/$32.00 & 2011 The Franklin Institute. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jfranklin.2011.10.012
 A. Sharifi et al. / Journal of the Franklin Institute 349 (2012) 162183 163

One of the key equipment in a cement industry is rotary kiln. Its task is to take an appropriate
mixture of input material (raw meal), and to gradually burn and bake it to produce clinker,
coarse-grained pieces of cement, which are then transported away from the kiln and milled in a
special mill to get the cement dust. The kiln itself is a complex cylindrical device, consuming fuel
to get preheated to a high temperature necessary to produce clinker. It rotates around its axis
and the raw meal dust sticks adhesively to its walls, thus getting burned and baked. Raw meal
for cement production is a mixture of predetermined proportions of limestone, silica, and small
quantities of alumina and iron oxide. A schematic representation of cement production unit is
shown in Fig. 1 [1]. In the process of cement production, the rotary kiln calcination is the most
important technology link, which includes complicated physical and chemical reaction process
with large inertia, pure hysteresis, nonlinearity and strong coupling characteristics. Cement
rotary kiln thermal system decides the production, quality and energy consumption. There are
several factors impact the thermal system of rotary kiln, including the rotation speed, the feed
volume of fuel, the feed volume of raw material and inner pressure of rotary kiln.
When the kiln rotation speed increases, the temperature drops slightly and usually the
speed is kept constant. When the feed volume of fuel increases, the reaction of decom-
position furnace can be exacerbated to make the temperature higher; and when the feed
volume of raw material increases, the reaction material in the kiln is added to make
the temperature higher. But when the temperature increases to a certain value, since the
material cannot get a fully reaction, the temperature of inner kiln drops. So the input
volume of inner kiln material should be in a certain proportional relationship with the feed
volume of fuel to make them in a fully reaction state. The rotary kiln should remain in a
micro-negative pressure state, because in the positive pressure state, the ventilation is poor
and the fuel cannot be burned completely; in the large negative pressure state, the fast
ventilation will take away the heat. The inner pressure of kiln is controlled by the speed of
ue blower.

Fig. 1. Schematic of rotary kiln and cement production.

164 A. Sharifi et al. / Journal of the Franklin Institute 349 (2012) 162183

Since the important reactions involved in clinker formation occur in rotary kiln, performance
of cement rotary kiln controls the cement quality and the overall plant performance. However,
in spite of being key equipment and being practiced for decades, attempts of developing
computational models to simulate cement kilns are few [29]. In recent years, computational
uid dynamics (CFD) based models are being applied to simulate rotary kilns [10,11]. It is
possible to simulate coal burner and free board region of rotary kiln fairly accurately using the
state of the art CFD models [1012]. It is however difcult to model motion of solid particles in a
conventional CFD framework. Therefore, a separate one-dimensional model for the bed can be
coupled with the CFD model of the free board region. Also some attempts have also been made
to develop reaction engineering models for kiln [13].
Unfortunately none of the above models are appropriate for prediction the operation of the
cement rotary kiln. So, more efforts should be made to model the kiln that could demonstrate
its behavior. In recent decades, articial intelligence, expert systems, and automatic control play
an important role in both the academia and industrial applications and they are being used
successfully in an increasing number of application areas. In the last few years, there has been an
increasing interest in the application of the fuzzy set theory [14] to industrial control problems
[1519]. Fuzzy control has been applied in combination with neural networks [2023], expert
systems, and traditional control systems [24] giving promising results, especially in cases where
the processes are too complex to be analyzed by conventional techniques [25] or when the
available information is qualitative, inexact, or uncertain. Some researches focus on nding an
appropriate model for cement rotary kiln and control it by using neural networks, neuro-fuzzy
and expert systems [1,2632].
Since the results of the conventional methods are typically poor for long term prediction of
cement rotary kiln, in this study a hierarchical wavelet TakagiSugeno type fuzzy system [33]
called HWFIS is proposed, in which WFIS [34] with two input variables acts as a sub-model in
hierarchical structure. Also gradient descent (GD) algorithm and supervised training method are
proposed for tuning parameters of this network structure. This model is useful to study kiln
behavior in different conditions and designing the model-based controller with the few numbers
of fuzzy rules. We will use HWFIS for modeling Saveh White Cement (SWC) rotary kiln. It is
65 m long, 4.7 m diameter kiln with four stage double string pre-heater and water immersion
cooler. The data collected from SWC Company is used in our simulations.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. In the next section, basic concepts of Takagi
Sugeno type fuzzy system and WFIS are presented. HWFIS and training algorithm are
proposed in Section 3. Preparing data set is proposed in Section 4. Simulations and results are
provided in Section 5 and nally in Section 6, we present some conclusions.

2. Preliminaries

2.1. TakagiSugeno type fuzzy inference system

Fuzzy inference systems are composed of a set of IFTHEN rules. A TakagiSugeno

fuzzy model has the following form of fuzzy rules [33]:
Rj : if x1 is A1j and x2 is A2j and . . . and xn is Anj
Then y fj x1 ,x2 ,. . .,xn j 1,2,. . .,N
where n is the number of input variables, N is the number of fuzzy rules, Aij is the fuzzy set
of the ith input variables for the jth fuzzy rule, and fj is a crisp function of xi and usually
 A. Sharifi et al. / Journal of the Franklin Institute 349 (2012) 162183 165

has the linear form fj x1 ,x2 ,. . .,xn q0 q1 x1    qn xn . The overall output of the TS
fuzzy model can be obtained by
PN mj
j 1 fj UTi 1 mij xi
y PN mj 1
j 1 Ti 1 mij xi

where mij is the membership function (MF) for fuzzy set, Aij, 1rmjrn is the number of
input variables that appear in the rule premise and T is a T-norm for fuzzy conjunction.
The TS-fuzzy system is a single-stage fuzzy system. It is important to partition the input
space using some clustering, grid partitioning, etc. [34]. Also some adaptive techniques
were proposed in order to determine the shapes of MFs in the antecedent part and the free
parameters in the consequent part of fuzzy system [3537].

2.2. WFIS structure

Both neural networks and fuzzy systems [38] are model-free estimators and share the
common ability to deal with the uncertainties and noises. Both of them encode the
information in a parallel and distribute architecture in a numerical framework. Hence, it is
possible to convert fuzzy system architecture to a neural network and vice-versa. This makes it
possible to combine the advantages of neural network and fuzzy logic. The network obtained
in this way could use powerful training algorithms that neural networks have at their disposal,
to obtain the required parameters not available in the fuzzy logic architecture. Moreover, this
network would not remain a black box, since it would have fuzzy logic capabilities to interpret
in terms of linguistic variables [39].
The WFIS is composed of two parts, the rst part is the antecedent part and the second
part is the conclusion part. These parts are connected to each other by rules in network
form. Fig. 2 shows WFIS structure in ve layers, where the rst layer executes a
fuzzication process, the second layer executes the fuzzy T-norm for the antecedent part of
the fuzzy rules, the third layer normalizes the MFs, the fourth layer executes the
consequent part of the fuzzy rules, and nally the last layer computes the output of fuzzy
system. The feed-forward equations of WFIS structure, which is shown in Fig. 2, can be
expressed as
wjk mj1j x1 mj2 x2 , j,k 1,2,:::,m 2
k

Fig. 2. Structure of WFIS with two input variables.

166 A. Sharifi et al. / Journal of the Franklin Institute 349 (2012) 162183

w
wjk Pm Pjkm , j,k 1,2,:::,m 3
i1 1 i2 1 wi1 i2

fjk q0,jk q1,jk x1 q2,jk x2 4

where m is the number of MFs for each input variable and {q0,q1,q2} are real numbers,
which are linear weights in the consequent part of WFIS structure. The nal output F of
the WFIS structure with two input variables and m MFs for each input variable can be
computed as follows:
Pm Pm
j1 k 1 fjk mj1j x1 mj2k x2 X m Xm
F Pm Pm fjk wjk 5
j1 k 1 mj1j x1 mj2 x2 j 1k1
k

In this study, Morlet wavelet is used as MF in WFIS structure. It is the modulated

Gaussian function, so this family is built starting from the following complex Gaussian
function [40]:
2 2
cx ejo0 x eo0 =2 ex =2s
, s40 6

Fig. 3. Wavelet with various dilations and translations.

 A. Sharifi et al. / Journal of the Franklin Institute 349 (2012) 162183 167

where o0Z5, then the Morlet wavelet becomes

2 2
jx ejo0 x ex =2s cos o0 x j sino0 x ex =2s

jR x jjI x, o0 Z5, s40 7

where jR x and jI x are the real and imaginary part, respectively. The function of jx is
also an appropriate admissible wavelet. When jx 2 L2 R, then jx becomes the mother
wavelet with dilation parameter d and translation parameter t.
xt xt
jd,t x jR d,t jjI d,t , d 2 Rf0g, t 2 R 8
d d
8 xt  
>
> 5xt xt2 =2sd 2
< jR d,t d cos
> e
d
xt   9
>
> 5xt xt2 =2sd 2
> jI d,t
: sin e
d d

By adjusting the parameter d and t, the formulas jR d,t xand jI d,t x have localization
performance in both time and frequency. Fig. 3 shows the wavelets with various dilation
parameters (d 1, 2, 3) and translation parameters (t 1, 0, 1). In this study, the real part
of jd,t x is used as MF for WFIS, also the value of s is set to 1.0 and for simplicity, the
indices d and t of jd,t xhave been eliminated.

3. Structure of HWFIS and training algorithm

The application of fuzzy logic to complicated problems with a large number of inputs
highlights the problem of rule-explosion. If a system requires n input variables each
partitioned into m membership functions (MFs), the total number of rules required to
model the system using one single fuzzy inference system (FIS) is mn. As the complexity
of the problem increases, the number of required inputs increases too, requiring an
exponentially larger number of rules. In order to deal with the problem rule explosion, the
development of hierarchical fuzzy systems has been proposed. In hierarchical systems, the
number of rules increases linearly with the number of inputs rather than exponentially [41].
For hierarchical fuzzy systems, the output from certain FIS is used as input for the
following FIS.
In the proposed structure, WFISs with two input variables are used as a sub-models.
Fig. 4 shows the structure of two layered HWFIS which has three WFISs per layer.

Fig. 4. Structure of a two layer HWFIS with six input variables.

168 A. Sharifi et al. / Journal of the Franklin Institute 349 (2012) 162183

In the structure of HWFIS, there are P sub-models in each layer where the number of
layers is L. The output F of the pth WFIS in the lth layer is computed by using Eq. (5). The
nal output y of the HWFIS is the average of the outputs in the last layer and can be
computed as follows:
1XP
y FL 10
Pp1 p

where P is the number of sub-models in the last layer, L. By consideration Eq. (5) as the
output of a sub-model with two input variables, we can compute the following equations
(see Appendix). It must be noted that for simplicity, mj1j x1 and mj2 x2 are replaced with
k
j1j and j2k , respectively.
Pm  1 Pm 2
Pm 1 2
 Pm 1
Pm 2
@F j 1 @jj =@x1 k 1 jk fjk k 1 jj jk q1,jk F j 1 @jj =@x1 k 1 jk
Pm Pm 1 2
@x1 j1 k 1 jj jk
11
Pm  Pm Pm  Pm Pm
2 1 1 2 2 1
@F k 1 @jk =@x2 j 1 jj fjk j 1 jj jk q2,jk F k 1 @jk =@x2 j 1 jj
Pm Pm 1 2
@x2 j1 k 1 jj jk
12
where m is the number of MFs for each input variable.
@F @F @jik
, k 1,2,. . .,m 13
@dfi
k
@jik @dfik

@F @F @jik
, k 1,2,. . .,m 14
@tfi
k
@jik @tfik
where i 1, 2 and fdji ,tji g are the dilation and translation parameters of the kth MF for
k k
the ith input variable. Let dene Hj1j and Hj2 as follows (see Appendix):
k
Pm 2
Pm 2
@F j
1 k jk f F j
Hj1j kP m Pm k1 k
, j 1,2,. . .,m 15
@j1j i1 1
1 2
i2 1 i1 ji2
j

Pm 1
Pm 1
@F j 1 jj fjk F j 1 jj
H j2 Pm Pm , k 1,2,. . .,m 16
k @j2k i1 1 i2 1 j1i1 j2i2

Substituting Eqs. (15) and/or (16) in Eqs. (13) and (14) yields:

@F @jik
H ji , k 1,2,. . .,m 17
@dji k @d i
f
k k

@F @jik
H ji , k 1,2,. . .,m 18
@tji k @t i
f
k k
 A. Sharifi et al. / Journal of the Franklin Institute 349 (2012) 162183 169

The derivations of j with respect to d and t are dened as follows (it must be noted that,
for simplicity the indices i and k have been eliminated):
     
@j 5 5xt 5xt xt 2 2
sin cos ext =2d 19
@t d d d d2

      
@j 5xt 5xt 5xt xt2 2 2
sin 2
cos 3
ext =2d 20
@d d d d d

Finally, the derivation of F with respect to q0,jk and qi,jk are dened as follows:
@F
wjk 21
@q0, jk

@F
wjk xi , i 1,2 22
@qi, jk
By consideration yn as target value and y as HWFIS output, the performance index of the
error is calculated as
1 n 1
E y y2 e2 23
2 2

The total training algorithm of the pth sub-model in the lth layer is summarized below:

@E i 1,2
Dqlp
i,jk Z Zerylp wlp
jk xi , 24
@qlp
i,jk
j,k 1,2,. . .,m

@E
Dqlp
0,jk Z Zerylp wlp
jk , j,k 1,2,. . .,m 25
@qlp
0,jk

@E @Fpl i 1,2
Ddjlpi Z Zerylp , 26
k @djlpi @djlpi k 1,2,. . .,m
k k

@E @Fpl i 1,2
Dtlp
ji
Z Zerylp , 27
k @tlp
jik
@tlp
jik
k 1,2,. . .,m

@y
rylp 28
@Fpl
where Z is the learning rate and usually is selected from the interval [0,1], l 1, 2, y, L and
p 1, 2, y, P. It must be noted that Eq. (28) is computed by using a chain of Eqs. (11)
and/or (12) multiply by 1/P, where Flp from the previous layer is used as xi for the following
WFIS. For example x1 and x2 for the WFIS22 shown in Fig. 4 are F12 and F11, which are
corresponded to the outputs of WFIS12 and WFIS11 respectively. Finally Algorithm 1
gives the complete training algorithm of the proposed method.
170 A. Sharifi et al. / Journal of the Franklin Institute 349 (2012) 162183

Algorithm 1. Total training algorithm of the HWFIS.

Initialize the parameters of antecedent and conclusion parts of sub-models.
for i 1 to Max-Epoch
for d 1 to Max-Data // maximum number of training data samples //
Computer the output of HWFIS, y
Let e yny // yn is the target value //
For each sub-model in the second and higher layer compute @Fpl =@x1 and @Fpl =@x2 ,
using
Eqs. (11) and (12), respectively.
For each sub-model compute @Fpl =@djlpi , @Fpl =@tlp
ji
, @Fpl =@q0,jk , @Fpl =@qi,jk , and rylp ,
k k
using
Equations (17), (18), (21), (22), and (28), respectively.
Update Dqlp lp lp lp
j,i1 i2 ... in , Dq0,i1 i2 ... in , Ddji , and Dtji for each sub-model from the last layer
k k
to the
rst one, using Eqs. (24)(27), respectively.
end
end

4. Preparing data set

There are three important steps in system identication procedure:

 Collecting of valid data.

 Selecting an appropriate model.
 A method to adjust the parameters of the model.

One of the most important assumptions in data collection step for any given system is
that any change happened in the output of the system is affected by the system input
variables and not because of disturbance or noise.
In this study we use the available data from normal operation of the SWC factory. Since
the original raw data from the cement rotary kiln include high frequency noise and offset,

Table 1
Input and output variables of cement rotary kiln.

Variable name Abbreviation Type

Material feed rate MAT I

Fuel feed rate FU I
Kiln speed KS I
I.D. fan speed FA I
Secondary air pressure AP I
Kiln ampere KA O
CO content CO O
Pre-heater temperature PRE O
Back-end temperature BE O
 A. Sharifi et al. / Journal of the Franklin Institute 349 (2012) 162183 171

these data are not appropriate and cannot be used in identication of the system. To
overcome these problems, some pre-processing methods [42] should apply on the original
raw data to produce a valid and useful data set. These pre-processing will be discussed in
the rest of this section.

4.1. Selecting input/output variables

In a cement factory, human operators usually apply some commands where can be
regarded as the model input variables. Furthermore, main sensors in the structure of
cement rotary kiln can be considered as the output variables of the model [43]. In order to
identify the cement rotary kiln of SWC Company, ve input variables and four output
variables were selected as the inputs and outputs of the model. These variables are listed
in Table 1 where in this table I and O means input and output variable, respectively.

4.2. Sampling frequency

In computer controlled systems, sampling of continuous signals leads to destruction of

some information. Therefore, it is necessary to select a proper sampling frequency, which
does not interfere with the control system [42]. Here there are three methods for selecting
sampling time:
Smallest time Ts tmin/3
constant
Band width fs 10fc
Settling time Ts Tst/20 to Tst/100

where Ts is sampling time, fs is sampling frequency, Tst is settling time, tmin is the smallest
time constant of the system, and nally fc is the cutoff frequency.
In order to obtain a proper sampling time in this study, smallest time constant method
was used. The smallest time constant of the system was calculated as three minutes. Based
on proposed equation, the sampling rate was assumed to be 60 s.

4.3. Peak removal

Peak removal from the real data and smoothing intense changes are very important steps in
data pre-processing. Usually operation of sensors and data acquisition cards may produce these
peaks. These sudden changes have a lot of energy in high frequency rang that degrades
estimation of the parameters of the models or validity rate [44]. To overcome this problem, the
data should pass through a proper lter that can eliminate noise from the original signal. But
designing a proper lter is very difcult procedure and may cause many problems. For example,
if we increase the band width of the lter, it will cause some quantities of noise to be remained on
the original signal and if we decrease the band width of the lter, it will cause some input signals
to be perished and sometimes change the shape of the input signal. In order to solve these
problems, we need a lter with swift descent characteristic. In this study, we used a rst order
Butterworth low-pass lter with 0.0012 Hz band width. In this case it is possible to eliminate
noise and disturbing from the real signal. Fig. 5 shows the result from using Butterworth low-
pass lter on the kiln ampere (KA) output.
172 A. Sharifi et al. / Journal of the Franklin Institute 349 (2012) 162183

Fig. 5. Result from the Butterworth low-pass lter on the real data.

Table 2
Inputoutput delays (minute).

Variable KA CO PRE BE

MAT 10 15 18 30
FU 25 5 4 10
KS 0 5 36 40
FA 10 0 0 5
AP 30 3 0 5

4.4. Inputoutput delay estimation

Estimation of the pure delay of a system plays an important role in any system
identication method. If this characteristic is correctly estimated, the identication process
simplied and gets an acceptable order. Due to the number of input variables and a vast
amount of data, the problem of inputoutput delay estimation in the identication of the
cement rotary kiln is a difcult one. In order to obtain inputoutput delays, various
methods such as step response test, cross correlation, and mutual information analysis
were applied. In this study, Lipschitz method is used to estimate inputoutput delays where
this method has been presented by Makaremi et al. [45]. The results are shown in Table 2.

5. Simulations and results

In this section, the proposed method is compared with nine conventional and newly
proposed methods consist of multi layer perceptron (MLP), radial basis function (RBF),
adaptive network-based fuzzy inference system (ANFIS), conventional hierarchical fuzzy
 A. Sharifi et al. / Journal of the Franklin Institute 349 (2012) 162183 173

system (CHFS), locally linear neuro-fuzzy model (LLNFM), self generating hierarchical
fuzzy system (SGHFS) [46], HFS with fast inference using transition matrices (FITM) [47],
hierarchical singleton-type recurrent neural fuzzy network (HSRNFN) [48], and hierarchical
coevolutionary fuzzy system (HiCEFS) [49] in identication of cement rotary kiln. Since ANFIS
results are typically poor for data sets with more than eight input variables due to the size of the
fuzzy search space, for each multi-input single-output (MISO) system, eight input variables were
selected as follows:
!
x t xk t,xk t,. . .,xk t u td h y thj 29
k 1 2 8 i ik k

where 1rkr4 is kth MISO system corresponded to the kth output of the system, ui, 1rir5, is
the ith input variable, dik is the pure delay between the ith input variable and the kth output
variable (see Table 2), yk is the real output of the plant, where 0rjr2 is the number of dynamic,
and h is the prediction horizon. There are two different groups of input variables in this model.
The rst group is ui(tdikh) and the second group is the previous outputs of the real process,
yk(thj). These input variables are given to the model where the future output, y^ t, will be
desired. For example the input vector ! x 2 t for the second MISO system with one minute
prediction horizon is dened as follows:
!x t u t16 u t6 u t6 u t1 u t4 y t1 y t2 y t3 30
2 1 2 3 4 5 2 2 2

The structure of HWFIS for each MISO system is depicted in Fig. 6. As shown in this
gure, the structure consists of two layers with four WFISs per layer where all WFISs have
two input variables. The total number of fuzzy rules in this structure with two MFs for
each input variables is equal to 32.
For all MISO systems, the structure of MLP consists of three layers where the activation
functions for the rst and the second layers are bipolar sigmoid and the nal layer consists
of a linear activation function. It must be noted that the numbers of neurons for MLP,
RBF, and LLNFM were obtained empirically. More neurons did not affect signicant
reduction in error and in some case were degraded the results. Also all MISO systems with
LLNFM were trained by locally linear model tree (LOLIMOT) algorithm which is an
incremental tree-structure algorithm.
For CHFS the structure consist of four ANFIS with two input variables at the rst
layer, two ANFIS with two input variables at the second layer and an ANFIS with two
input variables at the last layer. The total number of fuzzy rules in this structure is 28. For
SGHFS, FITM, HSRNFN, and HiCEFS we used the methods proposed in [4649],

Fig. 6. Structure of a two layer HWFIS with eight input variables.

174 A. Sharifi et al. / Journal of the Franklin Institute 349 (2012) 162183

respectively; for FITM we used serial HFS rather than parallel one. In the serial HFS, the
inputs to each sub-model are the outputs of the previous FIS and an external input, but in
parallel HFS the inputs to each sub-model are the outputs of two FISs from the previous
layer, same as the structure of CHFS in our simulations.
In our simulations data from two weeks were considered, the rst week as training data
set and the second week as testing data set. Also for each MISO system, four simulations
with 1, 5, 10, and 15 min prediction horizons were considered.

Fig. 7. Plot of the actual (solid line) and HWFIS outputs of the kiln ampere for the test data set.

Fig. 8. The prediction error of the kiln ampere.

 A. Sharifi et al. / Journal of the Franklin Institute 349 (2012) 162183 175

The output of the model, the actual output and the prediction error for the kiln ampere
with 10 min prediction horizon are depicted in Figs. 7 and 8, respectively. The mean square
errors of the test data set for all models are shown in Table 3 where in this table Structure
describes the structure of MLP, number of neurons for RBF and LLNFM, and number of
fuzzy rules for ANFIS, CHFS, SGHFS, FITM, HSRNFN, HiCEFS and HWFIS. Also
Parameter denotes the total number of trainable parameters in each model. Finally Time
shows the average execution time (second) for each model on a computer with Pentium IV
processor (2.4 GHz), 4 GB RAM DDR3, and MATLAB version 2008a.
Figs. 9 and 10 illustrate the output of the model, the actual output and the prediction
error for the CO content with 10 min prediction horizon, respectively. Table 4 lists the
mean square errors of the test data set for all models.

Table 3
Comparison of the MSE values for different models in prediction of kiln ampere (testing data set).

Model Prediction horizon (min) Structure Parameter Time (s)

1 5 10 15

MLP 3.08e2 5.11e1 2.94 26.3 8-13-1 203 232.32

RBF 1.03e1 1.79e1 6.03e1 8.79e1 40 400 260.78
ANFIS 9.71e2 3.19 10.1 21.0 256 2336 6278.4
CHFS 2.08e2 1.19e1 1.26 3.41 28 140 425.41
SGHFS 1.18e2 1.09e1 1.17 2.36 35 282 1495.6
FITM 9.87e3 8.37e2 7.29e1 1.48 28 140 473.17
HSRNFN 8.19e3 3.51e2 3.24e1 5.78e1 28 280 819.17
HiCEFS 4.28e2 3.76e1 4.52 11.31 52 628 5421.4
LLNFM 9.06e2 3.31e1 7.55e1 1.26 10 250 392.47
HWFIS 6.09e3 1.26e2 1.08e1 1.49e1 32 160 456.39

Fig. 9. Plot of the actual (solid line) and HWFIS outputs of the CO content for the test data set.
176 A. Sharifi et al. / Journal of the Franklin Institute 349 (2012) 162183

Fig. 10. The prediction error of the CO content.

Table 4
Comparison of the MSE values for different models in prediction of CO content (testing data set).

Model Prediction horizon (min) Structure Parameter Time (s)

1 5 10 15

MLP 1.66e5 1.37e4 5.63e3 1.97e3 8-11-1 183 234.71

RBF 3.80e4 4.95e4 8.04e4 1.88e3 35 350 254.33
ANFIS 2.21e5 3.94e4 1.88e3 4.99e3 256 2336 6318.4
CHFS 8.016 9.83e5 4.19e4 7.32e4 28 140 418.89
SGHFS 8.11e6 8.23e5 4.21e4 8.47e4 33 270 1327.6
FITM 7.24e6 8.91e5 3.18e4 6.65e4 28 140 469.35
HSRNFN 4.01e6 3.22e5 8.36e5 3.38e4 28 280 814.65
HiCEFS 1.45e5 2.06e4 1.21e3 3.59e3 48 592 5619.1
LLNFM 4.93e6 5.71e4 3.04e3 4.80e3 10 250 389.15
HWFIS 3.24e6 1.15e5 5.87e5 1.31e4 32 160 452.82

The results for the pre-heater temperature consist of model output, the actual output and
the prediction error with 10 min prediction horizon are shown in Figs. 11 and 12, respectively,
and the mean square errors of the test data set for all models are shown in Table 5.
Finally, the output of the model, the actual output and the prediction error for the
back-end temperature with 10 min prediction horizon are illustrated in Figs. 13 and 14,
respectively. Table 6 illustrates the mean square errors of the test data set for all models.
It must be noted that in our simulations, the epochs of the MLP, RBF, ANFIS, CHFS,
SGHFS, FITM, HSRNFN, HiCEFS, and HWFIS were set to 150, 100, 100, 100, 50, 100,
100, 500, and 100, respectively for all MISO systems.
From the above simulation results, it is evident that the results of the HWFIS for prediction of
the cement rotary kiln (especially for long term prediction) are better than the other models.
Moreover the proposed method has smaller structure and training time in comparison with the
 A. Sharifi et al. / Journal of the Franklin Institute 349 (2012) 162183 177

Fig. 11. Plot of the actual (solid line) and HWFIS outputs of the pre-heater temperature for the test data set.

Fig. 12. The prediction error of the pre-heater temperature.

other models. The prediction results of the HSRNFN for training data set is better than HWFIS
in some cases, but for testing data set, HWFIS has higher performance in all simulations, besides
HSRNFN uses more parameters than HWFIS and its training time is longer than HWFIS.

6. Conclusion

In this study a hierarchical wavelet TS-type fuzzy system called HWFIS was proposed
and its application in identication of Saveh White Cement rotary kiln was studied. In kiln
178 A. Sharifi et al. / Journal of the Franklin Institute 349 (2012) 162183

Table 5
Comparison of the MSE values for different models in prediction of pre-heater temperature (testing data set).

Model Prediction horizon (min) Structure Parameter Time (s)

1 5 10 15

MLP 8.81e1 3.74 4.72 11.4 10-15-1 271 237.52

RBF 1.55 1.76 5.74 12.4 50 500 250.94
ANFIS 7.63e1 4.10 17.8 21.2 256 2336 6349.1
CHFS 8.24e1 1.18 3.82 7.29 28 140 437.29
SGHFS 8.61e1 1.02 4.26 7.38 40 308 1561.2
FITM 5.19e1 7.65e1 2.92 5.12 28 140 529.14
HSRNFN 4.37e1 6.28e1 2.08 3.78 28 280 831.94
HiCEFS 9.23e1 2.75 4.69 10.1 68 772 5673.6
LLNFM 8.05e1 8.81e1 6.28 9.33 10 250 408.52
HWFIS 3.09e1 3.83e1 1.17 2.96 32 160 493.07

Fig. 13. Plot of the actual (solid line) and HWFIS outputs of the back-end temperature for the test data set.

identication procedure, suitable sampling time, noise elimination, data normalization,

and inputs channels delay estimation are essential. In the proposed method, WFIS sub-
models with two input variables were used in a hierarchical structure. In a large industrial
process, many variables need to be manipulated and controlled. When using a typical fuzzy
model, the linguistic synthesis becomes difcult and time consuming. One major advantage
of using a hierarchical fuzzy system other than a single-level system is that the number of
fuzzy rules and fuzzy operations involved in modeling process can be reduced signicantly
when compared with those required by the single-level counterparts, consequently the
number of fuzzy rules in HWFIS network is smaller than conventional ANFIS struc-
ture while its performance is comparable to ANFIS. The number of fuzzy rules and
parameters would increase tremendously (even difcult to manage) for large number of
inputs if a conventional fuzzy structure is used. This also results in slow convergent speed.
 A. Sharifi et al. / Journal of the Franklin Institute 349 (2012) 162183 179

Fig. 14. The prediction error of the back-end temperature.

Table 6
Comparison of the MSE values for different models in prediction of back-end temperature (testing data set).

Model Prediction horizon (min) Structure Parameter Time (s)

1 5 10 15

MLP 1.44 1.61 14.2 21.1 10-15-1 271 236.82

RBF 3.58e1 1.09 6.32 11.3 50 500 248.97
ANFIS 2.48e1 4.39 15.8 20.2 256 2336 6326.6
CHFS 3.21e1 1.03 5.28 6.41 28 140 473.68
SGHFS 3.09e1 8.24e1 4.19 7.35 42 334 1587.3
FITM 2.41e1 5.09e1 3.76 5.32 28 140 589.37
HSRNFN 1.39e1 3.45e1 1.89 3.89 28 280 839.61
HiCEFS 7.91e1 1.26 5.89 15.7 72 808 5742.9
LLNFM 7.56e1 1.53 5.27 8.92 10 250 432.61
HWFIS 1.12e1 3.37e1 1.06 1.97 32 160 503.28

Results show that the proposed method has higher performance for long term prediction of
cement rotary kiln in comparison with the other conventional and newly proposed methods.

Appendix A

In this section we present the total computing procedure of qF/qx1. It must be noted that
the computation of qF/qx1 and qF/qx2 has the same procedure. We can rewrite Eq. (5) as
follows:
f11 j11 j21 f12 j11 j22    f1m j11 j2m f21 j12 j21    fmm j1m j2m S
F 31
j11 j21 j11 j22    j11 j2m j12 j21    j1m j2m M
 180
where S and M are dened as follows:

S f11 j11 j21 f12 j11 j22    f1m j11 j2m f21 j12 j21    fmm j1m j2m 32

M j11 j21 j11 j22    j11 j2m j12 j21    j1m j2m 33

A. Sharifi et al. / Journal of the Franklin Institute 349 (2012) 162183

The derivation of F with respect to x1 is computed as follows:

@F @f11 =@x1 j11 j21 @j11 =@x1 f11 j21 @f12 =@x1 j11 j22 @j11 =@x1 f12 j22    @f1m =@x1 j11 j2m @j11 =@x1 f1m j2m    @fmm =@x1 j1m j2m @j1m =@x1 fmm j2m M

@x1 M2

S@j11 =@x1 j21 @j11 =@x1 j22    @j11 =@x1 j2m    @j1m =@x1 j2m
 34
M2
S
F -S FM 35
M
Substituting Eq. (35) in Eq. (34) yields:
@F @f11 =@x1 j11 j21 @j11 =@x1 f11 j21 @f12 =@x1 j11 j22 @j11 =@x1 f12 j22    @f1m =@x1 j11 j2m @j11 =@x1 f1m j2m    @fmm =@x1 j1m j2m @j1m =@x1 fmm j2m

@x1 M

F @j11 =@x1 j21 @j11 =@x1 j22    @j11 =@x1 j2m    @j1m =@x1 j2m
 36
M
We can simplify Eq. (36) as follows:
Pm 1
Pm Pm Pm Pm Pm
@F j 1 @jj =@x1 k1 j2k fjk j1 k1 j1j j2k q1,jk F 1
j 1 @jj =@x1 k1 j2k
Pm Pm 1 2
@x1 j1 k 1 jj jk

Pm  Pm Pm  P Pm
j1 @j1j =@x1 j
k1 k
2
f jk j 1 2
j
k1 j k q 1,jk F m 1
j 1 @jj =@x1
2
k 1 jk
Pm Pm 1 2
37
j1 k 1 jj jk
 A. Sharifi et al. / Journal of the Franklin Institute 349 (2012) 162183 181

Now we present the total computing procedure of qF/qj1j . The derivation of F with respect
to j1j using Eq. (31) is computed as follows:
@F fj1 j21 fj2 j22    fjm j2m MSj21 j22    j2m
38
@j1j M2
Substituting Eq. (35) in Eq. (38) yields:
@F fj1 j21 fj2 j22    fjm j2m F j21 j22    j2m
39
@j1j M

We can simplify Eq. (39) as follows:

Pm 2
Pm 2
@F k 1 jk fjk F k 1 jk
P m P m 40
@j1j i1 1
1 2
i2 1 ji1 ji2

References

[1] G. Noshirvani, A. Fatehi, B.N. Araabi, M. Shirvani, M. Azizi, Comparison of rotary cement kiln
identied models, in: Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Control and Automation, 2009,
pp. 12901295.
[2] M.A. Martins, L.S. Oliveira, A.S. Franca, Modeling and simulation of petroleum coke calcination in rotary
kilns, Fuel 80 (2001) 16111622.
[3] P.V. Barr, J.K. Brimacombe, A.P. Watkinson, A heat transfer model for the rotary kiln: part I, Pilot kiln
trials, Metallurgical and Material Transactions B 20B (1989) 391402.
[4] A.A. Boateng, P.V. Barr, A thermal model for the rotary kiln including heat transfer within the bed,
International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 39 (1996) 21312147.
[5] M.A. Martins, L.S. Oliveira, A.S. Franca, Modeling and simulation of limestone calcinations in rotary kilns,
ZKG International 55 (4) (2002) 7687.
[6] K.S. Mujumdar, V.V. Ranade, CFD simulations of heat transfer in transverse plane of rotating kilns,
Presented at Chemcon Conference, 2002.
[7] M. Paul, K.S. Mujumdar, V.V. Ranade, Modeling of rotary cement kilns, Presented at Chemcon Conference,
2002.
[8] V.V. Ranade, K.S. Mujumdar, CFD simulations of solid motion in the transverse plane of rotating kilns,
in: Proceedings of the third International Conference on CFD in the Minerals and Process Industries, 2003.
[9] H.A. Spang, A dynamic model of a cement kiln, Automatica 8 (1972) 309323.
[10] K.S. Mujumdar, V.V. Ranade, Simulation of rotary cement kilns using a one-dimensional model,
Transactions of IChemE, Part A, Chemical Engineering Research and Design 84 (2006) 165177.
[11] E. Mastorakos, A. Massias, C.D. Tsakiroglou, D.A. Goussis, V.N. Burganos, CFD predictions for cement
kiln including ame modeling, heat transfer and clinker chemistry, Applied Mathematical Modeling
23 (1999) 5576.
[12] V.V. Ranade, Modeling of rotary cement kiln, in: Proceedings of the third International Conference on CFD
in the Minerals and Process Industries, 2003.
[13] K.C. Karki, S.V. Patankar, J. Grant, Simulation of uid ow, combustion and heat transfer in a coal-red cement
kiln, Combustion, Fire and Computational Modeling of Industrial Combustion Systems FACT-23 (2000).
[14] L.A. Zadeh, Fuzzy sets, Information and Control 8 (1965) 338353.
[15] L.A. Zadeh, A rationale for fuzzy control, World Scientic Publishing, 1996, pp. 123126.
[16] C.C. Ku, P.H. Huang, W.J. Chang, Passive fuzzy controller design for nonlinear systems with multiplicative
noises, Journal of the Franklin Institute 347 (5) (2010) 732750.
[17] D.Karaboga Bagis, Evolutionary algorithm-based fuzzy PD control of spillway gates of dams, Journal of the
Franklin Institute 344 (8) (2007) 10391055.
[18] M. Ababneh, A.M. Almanasreh, H. Amasha, Design of digital controllers for uncertain chaotic systems
using fuzzy logic, Journal of the Franklin Institute 346 (6) (2009) 543556.
182 A. Sharifi et al. / Journal of the Franklin Institute 349 (2012) 162183

[19] K.H. Cheng, Auto-structuring fuzzy neural system for intelligent control, Journal of the Franklin Institute
346 (3) (2009) 267288.
[20] M.L. Presti, R. Poluzzi, A. Zanaboni, Synthesis of fuzzy controller through neural networks, Fuzzy Sets and
Systems 71 (1) (1996) 4670.
[21] A.Y. Alanis, E.N. Sanchez, A.G. Loukianov, E.A. Hernandex, Discrete-time recurrent high order neural
networks for nonlinear identication, Journal of the Franklin Institute 347 (7) (2010) 12531265.
[22] F. Ornelas, A.G. Loukianov, E.N. Sanchez, E.J. Bayro, Decentrralized neural identication and control for
uncertain nonlinear systems: application to plannar robot, Journal of the Franklin Institute 347 (6) (2010)
10151034.
[23] F.H. Hsiao, Fuzzy control of dithered chaotic systems via neural-network-based approach, Journal of the
Franklin Institute 347 (7) (2010) 11141136.
[24] K.G. Shin, Design of a knowledge-based controller for intelligent control systems, IEEE Transactions on
System, Man, and Cybernatics 21 (1991) 368375.
[25] R. Isermann, Digital Control Systems, Springer-Verlag, New York, 1981.
[26] Z. Li, Design of fuzzy neural network based control system for cement rotary kiln, in: Proceedings of
the Second International Asia conference on Informatics, Control, Automation, and Robotics, 2010,
pp. 290293.
[27] M. Sadeghian, A. Fatehi, Identication, prediction and detection of the process fault in a cement rotary kiln
by locally linear neuro-fuzzy technique, in: Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Computer
and Electrical Engineering, 2009, pp. 174178.
[28] M. Sadeghian, A. Fatehi, Identication of nonlinear predictor and simulator models of a cement rotary kiln
by locally linear neuro-fuzzy technique, in: Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Computer
and Electrical Engineering, 2009, pp. 168173.
[29] X. Zhou, T. Chai, Pattern-based hybrid intelligent control for rotary kiln process, in: Proceedings of the
IEEE International Conference on Control Applications, 2007, pp. 3135.
[30] M. Fallahpour, A. Fatehi, B.N. Araabi, M. Azizi, A supervisory fuzzy control of back-end temperature of
rotary cement kilns, in: Proceedings of the International Conference on Control, Automation, and Systems,
2007, pp. 429434.
[31] V. Devedzic, Knowledge-based control of rotary kiln, in: Proceedings of the International Conference on
Industrial Automation and Control, 1995, pp. 452458.
[32] M. Akalp, A.L. Domingues, R. Longchamp, Supervisory fuzzy control of a rotary cement kiln, in:
Proceedings of the Mediterranean Electrotechnical Conference, 1994, pp. 754757.
[33] T. Takagi, M. Sugeno, Fuzzy identication of systems and its application to modeling and control, IEEE
Transactions on System, Man, and Cybernetics 15 (1985) 116132.
[34] R. Babuska, Fuzzy Modeling and Identication, Ph.D. Dissertation, University Delft, Delft, The
Netherlands, 1996.
[35] A. Abraham, EvoNF: a framework for optimization of fuzzy inference systems using neural network learning
and evolutionary computation, in: Proceedings of the 17th IEEE International Symposium Intelligent
Control, 2002, pp. 327332.
[36] P. Angelov, D. Filev, An approach to online identication of TakagiSugeno fuzzy models, IEEE
Transactions on System, Man, and Cybernetics B, Cybernetics 34 (1) (2004) 484498.
[37] N. Kasabov, Q. Song, DENFIS: dynamic, evolving neural-fuzzy inference system and its application for
time-series prediction, IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy Systems 10 (1) (2002) 144154.
[38] R.R. Yager, L.A. Zadeh, Fuzzy Sets Neural Networks, and Soft Computing, Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1994.
[39] M. Kumar, D.P. Garg, Intelligent learning of fuzzy logic controllers via neural network and genetic
algorithm, in: Proceedings of the of JUSFA, JapanUSA Symposium on Flexible Automation Denver,
Colorado, 2004.
[40] A.A. Chun, Q. Zhengding, A method based Morlet wavelet for extracting vibration signal envelope, in:
Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Signal Processing, vol. 1, 2000, pp. 337340.
[41] M.L. Lee, H.Y. Chung, F.M. Yu, Modeling of hierarchical fuzzy systems, Fuzzy Sets and Systems 138 (2003)
343361.
[42] Y. Zhu, Multivariable System Identication for Process Control, Elsevier Science Ltd, 2001.
[43] M. Fallahpour, Designing of ANFIS Controller and Expert Operator for Rotary Cement Kiln, M.Sc. Thesis,
K.N. Toosi University of Tech, Tehran, Iran, 2007.
[44] G. Noshirvani, Identication of a Rotary Cement Kilns, M.Sc. Thesis, K.N. Toosi University of Technology,
Tehran, Iran, 2005.
 A. Sharifi et al. / Journal of the Franklin Institute 349 (2012) 162183 183

[45] I. Makaremi, A. Fatehi, B.N. Araabi, Lipschitz numbers: a medium for delay estimation, in: Proceedings of
the 17th IFAC World Congress, 2008.
[46] J. Li, K.H. Cheung, W. Rattasiri, S.K. Halgamuge, Self-generating hierarchical fuzzy systems, in:
Proceedings of the International Conference on Intelligent Sensing and Information Processing, 2004,
pp. 348353.
[47] A. Fernandez, C. Lopez, Hierarchical fuzzy system with FITM, in: Proceedings of FUZZ-IEEE, 2004,
pp. 767772.
[48] C.F. Juang, C.T. Chiou, C.L. Lai, Hierarchical singleton-type recurrent neural fuzzy networks for noisy
speech recognition, IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks 18 (3) (2007) 833843.
[49] H. Huang, M. Pasquire, C. Quek, Application of a hierarchical coevolutionary fuzzy system for nancial prediction
and trading, in: Proceedings of the IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation, 2008, pp. 12521259.