This NSF GOALI project is a joint effort between Clarkson University and Honeywell, USA for the development and implementation of controller performance monitoring techniques. The last decade has seen the emergence and commercialization of on-line control loop performance-monitoring techniques. The primary objectives of any performance-monitoring tool can be categorized as: (i) detection of performance degradation, (ii) diagnosis of the cause for performance degradation, and (iii) corrective action. While the first objective has been addressed comprehensively in the literature, work on the other two objectives is lacking. In this project, the focus will be on oscillation diagnosis, stiction detection, and stiction compensation. Quantitative and qualitative techniques will be explored for solving these problems. Through industrial collaboration with Honeywell, all the techniques that are developed will be extensively validated on one million industrial control loops.
Intellectual Merit:
Shape-based and model-based algorithms will be developed for stiction diagnosis. The scalability issues in the deployment of these algorithms will be studied through benchmarking on a million industrial control loop dataset. The development of both model-free and model-based stiction-compensation algorithms are envisaged. Preliminary results suggest that highly optimal compensation signals can be designed with benign valve movements for stiction compensation.
Broader Impact:
This work will generate tools that can be leveraged by the US process industries to maintain their competitive edge. Results arising out of the project will provide Honeywell with a performance assessment tool that can be benchmarked on a large database of loop data and subsequently implemented on a wide variety of control loops. It has been estimated that detection and diagnosis of control loop degradation alone could reduce energy cost of the overall process industry by 1% which could amount to as much as $300 million per year. This could be a driving force for other control vendors to embrace and develop their own controller performance monitoring tools. The dissemination activities include: publication in archival journals, presentation at conferences targeted at academicians and industry participants, and inclusion of material in a book on fault diagnosis that the PI is co-authoring. A laboratory experiment will be upgraded at Clarkson University and will be used to teach undergraduate students the concept of Controller Performance Assessment. The PI will work closely with Clarkson's Pipeline of Education Program to recruit talented underrepresented students from universities with which Clarkson has established articulation agreements and/or memorandums of understanding.
