Determining the state of a process control system: Current trends and future challenges

Dynamic data reconciliation to improve the result of controller performance assessment based on GMVC

Due to the complexity of the industrial working environment, controllers are susceptible to various disturbance signals, resulting in unsatisfactory control performance. Therefore, it is especially important to assess the controller performance. Considering the harmful effect of measurement noise on controller performance assessment (CPA) based on generalized minimum variance control (GMVC), this paper proposes dynamic data reconciliation (DDR) to improve the accuracy of CPA based on GMVC. The paper first introduces CPA based on GMVC, and then analyzes the influence of measurement noise on GMVC based CPA index. DDR combined with GMVC based CPA is then proposed and analyzed in both SISO and MIMO systems to weaken the impact of measurement noise on CPA index. For both Gaussian distributed noise and non-Gaussian distributed noise, the formulation of DDR is derived from the Bayesian formula and maximum likelihood estimate. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified in different case studies (involving both SISO and MIMO systems), and further verified by the control process of DC-AC converter. The simulation and experiment results demonstrate that the results of CPA based on GMVC can be obviously improved by using DDR.

Performance Assessment of Predictive Control—A Survey

Model Predictive Control constitutes an important element of any modern control system. There is growing interest in this technology. More and more advanced predictive structures have been implemented. The first applications were in chemical engineering, and now Model Predictive Control can be found in almost all kinds of applications, from the process industry to embedded control systems or for autonomous objects. Currently, each implementation of a control system requires strict financial justification. Application engineers need tools to measure and quantify the quality of the control and the potential for improvement that may be achieved by retrofitting control systems. Furthermore, a successful implementation of predictive control must conform to prior estimations not only during commissioning, but also during regular daily operations. The system must sustain the quality of control performance. The assessment of Model Predictive Control requires a suitable, often specific, methodology and comparative indicators. These demands establish the rationale of this survey. Therefore, the paper collects and summarizes control performance assessment methods specifically designed for and utilized in predictive control. These observations present the picture of the assessment technology. Further generalization leads to the formulation of a control assessment procedure to support control application engineers.

Using the expected detection delay to assess the performance of different multivariate statistical process monitoring methods for multiplicative and drift faults

Using the expected detection delay (EDD) index to measure the performance of multivariate statistical process monitoring (MSPM) methods for constant additive faults have been recently developed. This paper, based on a statistical investigation of the T²- and Q-test statistics, extends the EDD index to the multiplicative and drift fault cases. As well, it is used to assess the performance of common MSPM methods that adopt these two test statistics. Based on how to use the measurement space, these methods can be divided into two groups, those which consider the complete measurement space, for example, principal component analysis-based methods, and those which only consider some subspace that reflects changes in key performance indicators, such as partial least squares-based methods. Furthermore, a generic form for them to use T²- and Q-test statistics are given. With the extended EDD index, the performance of these methods to detect drift and multiplicative faults is assessed using both numerical simulations and the Tennessee Eastman process.