Study on VAPID control method for cylinder drying process of cut tobacco

In order to improve the moisture content control of dried cut tobacco during the cylinder drying process, a VAPID (Proportional integral derivative with variable arguments) control method was developed incorporating a Gauss and simplified piecewise functions (PWF). Simulation studies were performed with MATLAB/Simulink using the proposed method, and the results showed that the dynamic performance and robustness of the VAPID method were better than those of the conventional PID control with fixed parameters. A further application test showed that the standard deviation and coefficient of variation of the moisture content using the VAPID method were lower than those processed using the conventional PID method, with the standard deviation reduction from 0.21 to 0.10. The results indicated that the VAPID method could significantly improve the stability of the moisture content of dried cut tobacco during the cylinder drying process.