Data-Driven Process Systems Optimization under Uncertain Environment

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For today's process industries, a solid foundation in data acquisition and storage has been developed based on the established process control and information technologies. While huge volumes of data are generated through daily operations, process industries are moving towards data-driven decision making. The analysis of operations and business data is used to support process, plant, and enterprise-wide optimization initiatives. To achieve this kind of transition, it requires seamlessly merging data analytics and process control aspects with operational optimization of planning and scheduling. The target is to create added value to the industrial process, increase the agility of processes to react to changes simultaneously focusing on energy efficiency and sustainability. In the past few years, we have made achievements in process operations optimization under uncertainty using the robust optimization and stochastic programming techniques. With a large amount of operational data available, it is possible to improve the process and uncertainty model and make more practical decisions towards systems optimization. In this research program, we plan to combine the fields of process optimization and process data analytics by implementing systematic methods for data-driven optimization under uncertainty. Specifically, we will: 1) investigate the data-driven process and uncertainty modeling with the aid of data analytics; 2) develop approaches for data-driven robust and adaptive optimization of complex process systems; 3) develop software tools to enable the automation of modeling and solution of the data-driven optimization problem. The proposed research will be utilized to optimize systems of systems, from a single process unit to an entire plant site. This will provide significant theoretic and computational support that enables managers, operators, and engineers in the process industry to collaborate and work together using real-time data and analysis in an information-driven environment.