## 1 Introduction  
At present, the cement industry is developing an increasing level of automation [1, 2]. Increased automation has been motivated by the new demands of this industry for high-performance in terms of cement quality, productivity, efficiency, and lower costs in production and maintenance [3]. Likewise, in the last few decades, universal cement output has increased significantly, in emerging and non-emerging states. Consequently, studies related to increasing the efficiency of the productive process in this industry are highly relevant to today's scientific interest [4, 5, 6]. Cement manufacturers face major challenges. First, they must master increasingly stringent environmental regulations because it is an industry with rather high carbon dioxide emissions and secondly, they face increasing pressure to reduce costs due to excessive competition worldwide [7, 8, 9]. The key apparatus used in this industry is the rotary kiln [10], which is an enormous, slightly inclined cylinder that gradually turns on its axis, moved by a powerful electrical motor, while its content (the raw meal) is heated to extremely high temperatures (1350-1500 \({}^{\circ}\)C) [11]. The raw meal is loaded at the kiln superior end and moves toward the burner flame located at the inferior end as the kiln rotates. The high temperature occasions the raw meal to react and this reaction creates the clinker [10]. Once the clinker is manufactured, it is chilled quickly to minimize the creation of a glass phase and guarantee the maximum yield of alite (tricalcium silicate) formation, a vital component for the cement hardening properties [11]. After cooling, to produce powdered cement, the clinker nodules are ground with approximately 5% gypsum and other minor mineral additives to the consistency of powder [5]. Therefore, clinker manufacturing is of significant value [10]. Different approaches have been proposed in recent decades concerning the modelling [12, 13, 14] and control of cement rotary kilns [15, 16, 17]. In most modern cement factories, rotary kilns are equipped with a cyclone preheater, a precalciner, and a cooler [18; 19; 20]. The cyclone preheater consists of a vertical tower containing a series of cyclones stages with an auxiliary combustion system (precalciner) located at the bottom of the preheating tower to increase the temperature of the raw meal before putting it in the rotary kiln [10]. Raw meal enters the precalciner [21]. The preheater heats the raw meal using warm scape fumes from the rotary kiln, while the precalciner provides additional heat to the raw meal until it reaches a temperature between 860 \({}^{\circ}\)C and 950 \({}^{\circ}\)C, producing the decarbonizing process. This process is highly dependent on temperature and directly affects energy consumption [22]. It is well known that up to 70% of the energy consumption during the clinker manufacture process in modern rotary kilns is produced in the precalciner [23]. The decarbonizing process of the raw meal is one of the most important processes in the manufacturing of clinker, which is based on the endothermic calcination reaction [11]. The decarbonized raw meal then come in the rotary kiln where the clinker is produced [10]. Currently, the control and optimization of the precalciner temperature plays a vital role within the cement manufacturing process [24; 25]. If poor temperature control is performed in the precalciner, a modification is generated in the grade of decarbonizing of the raw meal that enters the kiln affecting the rank of the clinker without the option of offsetting it in its entirety in the later stages of the production process [20]. This generates large material losses due to the damages produced in the refractory of the rotary kiln owing to the temperature increase and generates higher maintenance and production costs [26; 27]. The precalciner is characterized by its ability to improve thermal efficiency and reduce heat waste in the cement kilns [11].