Patent ID: 11858175
Assignee: THE JAPAN STEEL WORKS, LTD.
Field: Other special machines (Mechanical engineering)
Classification: CPC B  G | IPC B  G

Claim 5:
6. A method for controlling a continuous kneading apparatus, the continuous kneading apparatus comprising:
a cylinder;
a screw housed in the cylinder;
a plurality of ring-shaped heaters arranged along a longitudinal direction of the cylinder so as to cover an outer peripheral surface of the cylinder;
a plurality of temperature sensors, each of the plurality of temperature sensors being configured to measure a temperature of a part of the cylinder heated by a respective one of the plurality of ring-shaped heaters; and
a controller configured to perform feedback control for each of the plurality of ring-shaped heaters based on the temperature measured by a respective one of the plurality of temperature sensors,
wherein resin pellets charged into the cylinder are kneaded by the screw while being heated by the plurality of ring-shaped heaters, and
wherein the method comprises, for each of the plurality of ring-shaped heaters, the steps of:
(a) calculating, by the controller, a control error from the temperature measured by the temperature sensor;
(b) determining, by the controller, a current state and a reward based on the calculated control error;
(c) updating, by the controller, a control condition based on the determined reward and selecting an action corresponding to the current state under the update control condition, the updated control condition being a combination of a state and the selected action; and
(d) controlling, by the controller, the respective ring-shaped heater based on the selected action,
wherein the state represents a predetermined range of control error values, and the current state is the state that represents the range that includes the calculated control error, and
the reward indicates appropriateness of the selected action selected in a previous state previous to the current state.