Cooperative distributed model predictive control

我们打算开发一种新的过程控制策略的代码，然后将其嵌入控制设备中。制造工厂通常由相互关联的单元操作组成，这些操作通过物质、能量和信息流的网络连接在一起。由于机组运营是相互关联的，因此通过材料回收、能量集成和整体进料或产量优化创造了节省成本的潜力。然而，由于子系统通常是独立控制的，因此失去了潜在的效率收益。我们的创新将使我们能够获得这些效率提升；在我们的解决方案中，每个子系统都将有一个单独的控制器，这使我们能够保持简单性，但每个控制器都将意识到子系统之间的网络交互，并将与网络中的其他控制器合作，以确保实现工厂范围的目标。这项新技术需要解决许多技术挑战才能创造出来，它将适用于一系列采用连续工艺的制造工厂，包括化工、食品加工和纸浆造纸行业。如果成功，将为客户带来的好处包括提高生产率、减少能源消耗和改善产品质量。

We intend to develop and then embed within a control device, the code for a new process control strategy. Manufacturing plants typically consist of linked unit operations that are connected through a network of material, energy, and information streams. Because the unit operations are interlinked, it creates the potential for savings through material recycle, energy integration and overall feed or yield optimisation. However, because subsystems are often controlled independently, the potential efficiency gains are lost. Our innovation will enable us to capture these efficiency gains; with our solution, each sub-system will have a separate controller, which enables us to preserve simplicity, but each controller will be aware of network interactions between subsystems and will cooperate with other controllers in the network to ensure that a plant-wide objective is achieved. This new technology, which will require solving a number of technical challenges to create, will be applicable to a range of manufacturing plants that employ continuous processes including; the chemical, food processing, and pulp & paper industries. If successful, the benefits delivered to clients include improvements in productivity, reductions in energy consumption and improvements in product quality.