Experimental Assessment of Control Loop Performance: A Methodology for Comparing On–Off and PID Actions in Dissolved Oxygen Regulation

Experimental validation of dissolved oxygen (DO) control in aquaculture is often limited by biological variability, environmental disturbances, and hydrodynamic complexity, which hinder reproducibility and reliable performance assessment. To address this, the present work proposes a laboratory-scale, control-oriented platform that minimizes external disturbances and enables experimentation under consistent conditions, supported by a statistically grounded methodology for performance evaluation. The platform integrates industrial-grade instrumentation and automated control hardware, ensuring reliable operation and practical relevance. Oxygen demand is emulated through chemical deoxygenation using sodium sulfite, allowing experiments to start from consistent near-zero DO conditions. Within this framework, On–Off and discrete-time PID controllers are implemented as baseline strategies to illustrate the methodology. Their evaluation through standard performance metrics and confidence-interval criteria illustrates how the platform can support rigorous, repeatable assessment of control actions. Rather than aiming at optimal control design, the proposed approach offers a benchmark methodology for dissolved oxygen regulation studies, providing a reproducible basis that may guide future investigations.