An integrated system for synthesis of plant-wide control structure

A prototype integrated system and its theories for distributed SISO control structure synthesis of complete chemical plants is developed. The scope of this work includes control structure synthesis not only of simple units with unspecified control loops but also of the complex process at preliminary and basic design stage. Hierarchical approach and dual-decomposition strategy (that is multi-layer decomposition and multi-echelon decomposition) is applied to this system. Because automatic control structure synthesis of complex plants is a problem defined as a series of knowledge-intensive tasks within multiple spaces, the established methodology is complemented by not only techniques from knowledge-based expert systems but also shortcut and rigorous control theories. This system is used for education of control designers, process engineers, operators and students as well as for operability studying, in-line and on-line process control structure synthesis.