Research Initiation Award: Robust Control of Chemical Processes

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Models of chemical processing systems may be affected by varying degrees of error. In many substances reasonable bounds on the extent of the errors can be determined quantitatively. In particular, ellipsoidal confidence regions-- certainty models-- can be generated as a by product of efforts to model process plants. This project addresses the design of robust controllers capable of satisfying performance and stability specifications for a normal plant as well as for all plants belonging to a neighboring ellipsoidal uncertainty region. The objectives of this research are to (1) develop a comprehensive methodology for analyzing the robustness of systems with ellipsoidally uncertain plants, (2) produce tools for synthesizing robust controllers for such plants, and test and evaluate the resulting control strategies via simulation studies. The analysis of robustness will be carried out by extending the results of a frequency-domain technique which leads to a simple necessary and sufficient condition for robust stability. New synthesis methods are planned using generic control structures as well as specialized designs such as pole-placement. Computer simulation studies of chemical engineering systems will be used to critically evaluate the new control strategies using systems of relevance to the chemical processing industry.