Cooperative distributed model predictive control

我们打算开发一种新的过程控制策略的代码，然后将其嵌入到控制设备中。制造工厂通常由链接的单元操作组成，这些单元操作通过材料、能量和信息流的网络连接。由于单元操作是相互关联的，因此它通过材料回收、能源整合和整体进料或产量优化创造了节约的潜力。然而，由于子系统往往是独立控制的，潜在的效率增益损失。我们的创新将使我们能够获得这些效率收益;通过我们的解决方案，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，并与网络中的其他控制器合作，以确保实现整个工厂的目标。这项新技术需要解决许多技术挑战，将适用于一系列采用连续工艺的制造工厂，包括化学，食品加工和纸浆和造纸行业。如果成功，为客户带来的好处包括提高生产力，减少能源消耗和提高产品质量。

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.