LAUSR

In aquaculture, the dissolved oxygen (DO) content of a water body is important for the growth of aquatic products and thus needs to be precisely controlled. For this purpose, through an open-loop experiment of DO aeration under different airflow rates, empirical transfer function models that can fully describe the dynamic response relationship between aeration flow rate and DO content were established. Based on these models, this study proposed a differential evolution (DE) algorithm-optimised radial basis function (RBF) neural network proportional integral derivative (PID) controller (DE-RBF-PID). The proposed controller has two optimisation parts. The first part is devoted to finding the optimal initial parameters of PID using an improved DE algorithm. The second part utilises the powerful learning ability of the RBF neural network to adjust the PID parameters online, which can not only eliminate overshoots, but also improve the controller adaptability. The simulation results for a typical DO nonlinear control system demonstrated the superiority of the proposed DE-RBF-PID controller over conventional PID and RBF-PID controllers. Therefore, this controller can be applied for precise tracking control of DO in complex circulating aquaculture systems.