CAREER: Multi-Rate Model-Based Control of Nonlinear Processes

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Abstract CTS-9703278 The universal drive for more consistent attainment of high product quality, more efficient use of energy, and tighter safety and environmental regulations, has imposed far stricter demands on the control system than can be met by linear control alone. The abundance of nonlinear processes in the chemical/petrochemical and biochemical industries, the inadequacy of linear control and state estimation for nonlinear processes, the market pressure for operation of the processes at their maximum capacity where optimum lies, and the multi-rate/delayed nature of many key process measurements, are the motivations for the development of controller and state estimators that can effectively deal with these process characteristics. The research component of this project concerns multi-rate nonlinear control and state estimation with real-time application to industrial and pilot-scale processes. The specific research objectives are: (i) to solve directly the fundamental problems of constraint handling and integral windup in discrete-time input-output (IO) linearizing control, via a model predictive control formulation of IO linearization, and to derive conditions for closed-loop stability in the presence of active input constraints; (ii) to study the fundamental problem of nonlinear state estimation from multi-rate, delayed measurements with guaranteed asymptotically stable estimator error dynamics; (iii) to develop a general and practical method of multi-rate nonlinear control within the framework of IO linearization; and (iv) to implement in real-time, the developed methods of multi-rate control and state estimation on an industrial polymerization reactor and a pilot-scale biochemical reactor. The real-time implementation on the polymerization reactor will be carried out in collaboration with the E. I. duPont deNemours Company. The instructional activities will include laboratory development, supervising high-school and undergraduate students to participate in the resear ch, and outreach activities for recruitment and professional awareness at Drexel. In addition, the PI plans to focus on two activities, formulation of sets of open-ended industrial process control problems (each to be assigned in undergraduate or graduate process control courses as projects), and the development of interactive, media-rich computer-aided instructional modules for the Process Control and Process Modeling courses.