Extremum Seeking-based Optimal Setting of the Air Temperature in Industrial Textile Dryers

In this paper, the problem of determining in realtime the optimal temperature set-point for convective textile drying processes is addressed. Because of the limited knowledge of certain process parameters and the difficulty of developing, implementing, and using effective models, the problem is faced by means of a model-free approach. In particular, by using an Extremum Seeking Control (ESC) scheme, we determine the dryer operating temperature that ensures a final (desired) residual moisture content in textile materials. In this preliminary study, first, we develop a Matlab-based simulation environment for the textile drying process and then we exploit it to design and test the ESC scheme. The in silico results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed approach.