Real-time optimization for performance and efficiency in manufacturing systems

全球市场压力对制造系统的管理和运作产生了巨大影响。由于市场和能源成本波动日益频繁，制造场址的管理和运作方式发生了巨大变化。许多加拿大公司正在花费相当大的努力将科学和技术结合起来，试图综合新的战略，为充满活力的世界市场提供有竞争力的服务和产品。经营文化的这些变化导致了对灵活集成制造战略设计的重视。所提出的研究目标是开发创新的过程控制和优化技术，在安全、环保和灵活的制造环境中提供最大的盈利能力。实时优化（RTO）是一种成熟的过程优化技术，在过程工业中得到了广泛的认可。尽管RTO取得了相对的成功，但它仍然局限于解决具有良好特征的过程，这些过程可以进行稳态优化。在这个项目中，我们开发了新的RTO设计技术，用于在有限的可用信息下操作的过程，并且受到大量动态变化的影响。研究项目还考虑了RTO在大型系统中的应用。利用分布式和分散控制领域的最新进展，开发了用于大型RTO系统设计的新技术，这些技术依赖于同时解决较小的可管理子问题。该研究项目与领先的工业参与者普莱克斯公司、森科尔能源公司和江森自控公司合作，提供了解决工业相关问题的新技术，可以使加拿大公司和制造商受益。本项目将培养3名研究生和1名博士后。他们将在优化和控制方面发展出高水平的专业知识。与工业合作伙伴的合作将为学生提供在加拿大制造商高度重视的战略领域的独特培训经验。

Global market pressures have had a dramatic impact on the management and operation of manufacturing systems. The increasing frequency of market and energy cost fluctuations has caused a drastic change in the way that manufacturing sites must be managed and operated. Many Canadian companies are spending a considerable effort to integrate science and technology in an attempt to synthesize new strategies for offering competitive services and products for a dynamic world market. These changes in operating culture have led to an emphasis on the design of flexible integrated manufacturing strategies. The objective of the proposed research is to develop innovative process control and optimization techniques that provide maximum profitability in safe, environmentally-friendly and flexible manufacturing environments. Real-time optimization (RTO) is an established process optimization technology that has received wide acceptance in the process industries. Despite its relative success, RTO remains inherently limited to the solution of well characterized processes that are amenable to steady-state optimization. Within this program, we develop new RTO design technologies for process operated with limited information available and that are subject to substantial dynamic variations. The research project also considers the application of RTO in large-scale systems. Using recent advances in the area of distributed and decentralized control, new techniques that rely on the simultaneous solution of smaller manageable subproblems are developed for the design of large-scale RTO systems. Performed in collaboration with leading industrial partcipants, Praxair Inc, Suncor Energy and Johnson Controls, the research project provides new technologies that address industrially relevant problems that can benefit Canadian companies and manufacturers. Three graduate students and a postdoctoral fellow will be trained within the course of this project. They will develop a high level of expertise in optimization and control. The collaboration with the industrial partners will provide the students a unique training experience in strategic areas that highly valued by Canadian manufacturers.