The series Advances in Industrial Control aims to report and encourage technology transfer in control engineering. The rapid development of control technology has an impact on all areas of the control discipline. New theory, new controllers, actuators, sensors, new industrial processes, computer methods, new applications, new philosophies ... , new challenges. Much of this development work resides in industrial reports, feasibility study papers and the reports of advanced collaborative projects. The series offers an opportunity for researchers to present an extended exposition of such new work in all aspects of industrial control for wider and rapid dissemination. The last decade has seen considerable interest in reviving the fortunes of non linear control. In contrast to the approaches of the 60S, 70S and 80S a very pragmatic agenda for non-linear control is being pursued using the model-based predictive control paradigm. This text by R. Ansari and M. Tade gives an excellent synthesis of this new direction. Two strengths emphasized by the text are: (i) four applications found in refinery processes are used to give the text a firm practical continuity; (ii) a non-linear model-based control architecture is used to give the method a coherent theoretical framework.
The work in this book entails the development of non-linear model-based multivariable control algorithms and strategies and their use in an integrated approach to control strategy, which incorporates a process model, an inferential model and a multivariable control algorithm in one framework. This integrated approach has been applied to various refinery processes that exhibit strong non-linearities, process interactions and constraints and has been shown to produce good results by improving closed-loop quality control and maximising the yield of high-value products. The non-linear model-based control structure is further extended to permit the use of inferential models in non-linear multivariable control applications. A wide range of inferential models has been developed, implemented in real-time and integrated with non-linear multivariable control applications. These inferential models demonstrate the improvement in the performance of closed-loop quality control and the dynamic response of the system in reducing long time delays.
A comlex multivariable control problem is solved by formulating the non-linear, constrained optimisation strategy for a crude distillation and a semi-regenerative catalytic reforming process. A non-linear constrained optimisation strategy is proposed and applied to a fluid catalytic cracking reactor-regenerator section using a simplified fluid-catalytic-cracking-process model. A dynamic parameter update algorithm is developed and used to reduce the effect of larger modelling errors by updating the selected model parameters regularly.This book was brought about, primarily, in response to industrial interest in the improvement of operating efficiency and profitability using the non-linear model-based technology which it discusses. A second motivation of more academic interest was the implementation of model-based methods in real-time for control of complex processes with strong non-linearities and process interactions and a third, more practical, was the reduction of the gap between theoretical work and the industrisl practice of advanced process control.
