Safe-parking of nonlinear process systems: Handling uncertainty and unavailability of measurements

This work considers the problem of handling actuator faults in nonlinear process systems subject to input constraints, uncertainty and availability of limited measurements. A framework is developed to handle faults that preclude the possibility of continued operating at the nominal equilibrium point using the existing robust or reconfiguration-based fault-tolerant control approaches. The key consideration is to operate the plant using the depleted control action at an appropriate ‘safe-park’ point to prevent onset of hazardous situations as well as enable smooth resumption of nominal operation upon fault-repair. First, we consider the presence of constraints and uncertainty and develop a robust Lyapunov-based model predictive controller that enhances the set of initial conditions from which closed-loop stability is achieved. The stability region characterization provided by the robust predictive controller is subsequently utilized in a safe-parking algorithm that appropriately selects ‘safe-park’ points from the safe-park candidates (equilibrium points subject to failed actuators) to preserve closed-loop stability upon fault-repair. Specifically, a candidate parking point is termed a safe-park point if (1) the process state at the time of failure resides in the stability region of the safe-park candidate (subject to depleted control action and uncertainty) and (2) the safe-park candidate resides within the stability region of the nominal control configuration. Then we consider the problem of availability of limited measurements. An output feedback Lyapunov-based model predictive controller, utilizing an appropriately designed state observer (to estimate the unmeasured states), is formulated and its stability region explicitly characterized. An algorithm is then presented that accounts for the estimation errors in the implementation of the safe-parking framework. The proposed framework is illustrated using a chemical reactor example and demonstrated on a styrene polymerization process.     

Safe-parking of nonlinear process systems

This work considers the problem of control of nonlinear process systems subject to input constraints and faults in the control actuators. Faults are considered that preclude the possibility of continued operating at the nominal equilibrium point and a framework (which we call the safe-parking framework) is developed to enable efficient resumption of nominal operation upon fault-recovery. To this end, first Lyapunov-based model predictive controllers, that allow for an explicit characterization of the stability region subject to constraints on the manipulated input, are designed. The stability region characterization is utilized in selecting ‘safe-park’ points from the safe-park candidates (equilibrium points subject to failed actuators). Specifically, a candidate parking point is termed a safe-park point if (1) the process state at the time of failure resides in the stability region of the safe-park candidate (subject to depleted control action), and (2) the safe-park candidate resides within the stability region of the nominal control configuration. Performance considerations, such as ease of transition from and to the safe-park point and cost of running the process at the safe-park point, are then quantified and utilized in choosing the optimal safe-park point. The proposed framework is illustrated using a chemical reactor example and robustness with respect to parametric uncertainty and disturbances is demonstrated on a styrene polymerization process.     

Active fault isolation of nonlinear process systems

This work considers the problem of designing an active fault‐isolation scheme for nonlinear process systems subject to uncertainty. The faults under consideration include bounded actuator faults and process disturbances. The key idea of the proposed method is to exploit the nonlinear way that faults affect the process evolution through supervisory feedback control. To this end, a dedicated fault‐isolation residual and its time‐varying threshold are generated for each fault by treating other faults as disturbances. A fault is isolated when the corresponding residual breaches its threshold. These residuals, however, may not be sensitive to faults in the operating region under nominal operation. To make these residuals sensitive to faults, a switching rule is designed to drive the process states, upon detection of a fault, to move toward an operating point that, for any given fault, results in the reduction of the effect of other faults on the evolution of the same process state. This idea is then generalized to sequentially operate the process at multiple operating points that facilitate isolation of different faults for the case where the residuals are not simultaneously sensitive to faults at a single operating point. The effectiveness of the proposed active fault‐isolation scheme is illustrated using a chemical reactor example and demonstrated through application to a solution copolymerization of methyl methacrylate and vinyl acetate. © 2013 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 59: 2435–2453, 2013     

Proactive fault‐tolerant model predictive control

Fault‐tolerant control methods have been extensively researched over the last 10 years in the context of chemical process control applications, and provide a natural framework for integrating process monitoring and control aspects in a way that not only fault detection and isolation but also control system reconfiguration is achieved in the event of a process or actuator fault. But almost all the efforts are focused on the reactive fault‐tolerant control. As another way for fault‐tolerant control, proactive fault‐tolerant control has been a popular topic in the communication systems and aerospace control systems communities for the last 10 years. At this point, no work has been done on proactive fault‐tolerant control within the context of chemical process control. Motivated by this, a proactive fault‐tolerant Lyapunov‐based model predictive controller (LMPC) that can effectively deal with an incipient control actuator fault is proposed. This approach to proactive fault‐tolerant control combines the unique stability and robustness properties of LMPC as well as explicitly accounting for incipient control actuator faults in the formulation of the MPC. Our theoretical results are applied to a chemical process example, and different scenaria were simulated to demonstrate that the proposed proactive fault‐tolerant model predictive control method can achieve practical stability and efficiently deal with a control actuator fault. © 2013 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 59: 2810–2820, 2013     

Distributed fault diagnosis of heating,ventilation, and air conditioning systems

The problem of distributed fault detection and isolation (FDI) for heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems has been addressed in this work. First, a linear model is identified for subunits of an HVAC system. Next, a local FDI (LFDI) framework is designed for each unit under consideration. A distributed FDI architecture is designed where the LFDI frameworks communicate to exchange information to achieve enhanced FDI in each unit. As a result, each LFDI framework functions as intended even in the presence of faults that affect multiple units. Effectiveness of the proposed distributed FDI framework is shown for various commonly occurring fault scenarios. © 2018 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 65: 640–651, 2019     

Safe‐steering of batch process systems

This work considers the problem of controlling batch processes to achieve a desired final product quality subject to input constraints and faults in the control actuators. Specifically, faults are considered that cannot be handled via robust control approaches, and preclude the ability to reach the desired end‐point, necessitating fault‐rectification. A safe‐steering framework is developed to address the problem of determining how to utilize the functioning inputs during fault rectification to ensure that after fault‐rectification, the desired product properties can be reached upon batch termination. To this end, first a novel reverse‐time reachability region (we define the reverse time reachability region as the set of states from where the desired end point can be reached by batch termination) based MPC is formulated that reduces online computations, as well as provides a useful tool for handling faults. Next, a safe‐steering framework is developed that utilizes the reverse‐time reachability region based MPC in steering the state trajectory during fault rectification to enable (upon fault recovery) the achieving of the desired end point properties by batch termination. The proposed controller and safe‐steering framework are illustrated using a fed‐batch process example. © 2009 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 2009     

Integrated nonlinear model predictive fault tolerant control and multiple model based fault detection and diagnosis

In this paper, a new fault-tolerant control approach is presented for a class of nonlinear systems, which preserves system stability despite a time delay in fault detection. The faults are assumed to occur in the actuators and are modeled for the general form of affine nonlinear systems. A fault detection and diagnosis (FDD) block is designed based on the multiple model method. The bank of extended Kalman filters (EKF) is used to detect predefined actuator faults and to estimate the unknown parameters of actuator position. The estimated parameters are then used to correct the model of the faulty system and to reconfigure the controller. The reconfigurable controller is designed based on the stabilizing nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC) scheme. On the other hand, in the duration between fault occurrence and fault detection, because of the mismatch between the process and the model, the system states may go off the attraction region. The proposed method is based on designing multiple local controllers for individual predefined faults. Depending on the value of a system variable at the moment of fault detection, one of these controllers will operate. This leads to a stability region of a set of auxiliary equilibrium points (AEPs), which is larger than the attraction region. Moreover, a framework for preserving system stability is presented. Finally, a practical chemical process example is presented to illustrate the effectiveness of this method.     

Topological preservation techniques for nonlinear process monitoring

This work proposes a novel approach for the offline development and online implementation of data-driven process monitoring (PM) using topological preservation techniques, specifically self-organizing maps (SOM). Previous topological preservation PM applications have been restricted due to the lack of monitoring and diagnosis tools. In the proposed approach, the capabilities of SOM are further extended so that all aspects of PM can be performed in a single environment. First for fault detection, using SOM's vector quantization abilities, an SOM-based Gaussian mixture model (GMM) is proposed to define the normal region. For identification, an SOM-based contribution plot is proposed to identify the variables most responsible for the fault. This is done by analyzing the residual of the faulty point and an SOM model of the normal region used in fault detection. The data points are projected on the model by locating the best matching unit (BMU) of the point. Finally, for fault diagnosis a procedure is formulated involving the concept of multiple self-organizing maps (MSOM), creating a map for each fault. This allows the ability to include new faults without directly affecting previously characterized faults. A Tennessee Eastman Process (TEP) application is performed on dynamic faults such as random variations, sticky valves and a slow drift in kinetics. Previous studies of the TEP have considered particular feed-step-change faults. Results indicate an excellent performance when compared to linear and nonlinear distance preservation techniques and standard nonlinear SOM approaches in fault diagnosis and identification.     

Decentralized Fault Isolation by a Combination of Transfer Entropy and Classification Methods

Early fault detection and isolation in industrial systems is vitally necessary to prevent any potential product damage. The paper proposes a new decentralized multi-unit fault isolation methodology in which all the known process faults with similar time signatures are grouped into appropriate categories. An innovative genetic algorithm-based method is introduced to explore for optimum plant zones in a large-scale plant wide search to appropriately configure each architectural unit, having less reliance on excess process variables with redundant and uncorrelated diagnostic information. The methodology employs a set of Bayes and radial basis function neural network classifiers to properly isolate the most usual known faults. A new idea based on transfer entropy algorithm has been integrated in the decentralized configuration to be triggered for isolation of novel faults which have been left unrecognized by the set of maintained classifiers. Experimental results clearly demonstrate that the proposed methods are considerably superior to the conventional centralized methods.     

Robust fault detection and monitoring of hybrid process systems with uncertain mode transitions

A methodology for fault detection and monitoring of a class of hybrid process systems modeled by switched nonlinear systems with control actuator faults, uncertain continuous dynamics, and uncertain mode transitions is presented. A robust hybrid monitoring scheme that distinguishes reliably between faults, mode transitions, and uncertainty is developed using tools from unknown input observer theory and results from Lyapunov stability theory. The monitoring scheme consists of (1) a family of dedicated mode observers that locate the active operating mode at any given time and detect mode switches, (2) a family of robust Lyapunov‐based fault detection schemes that detect the faults within the continuous modes, and (3) a supervisor that synchronizes the switching between different controllers and different fault detectors as the process transitions from one mode to another. A key idea of the developed framework is to design the mode observers in a way that facilitates the identification of the active mode without information from the controllers and renders the residuals insensitive to the faults and uncertainties in the constituent subsystems. The implementation of the developed monitoring scheme is demonstrated using a simulated model of a chemical reactor that switches between multiple operating modes. © 2010 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 2011     

A novel dynamic bayesian network‐based networked process monitoring approach for fault detection,propagation identification,and root cause diagnosis

A novel networked process monitoring, fault propagation identification, and root cause diagnosis approach is developed in this study. First, process network structure is determined from prior process knowledge and analysis. The network model parameters including the conditional probability density functions of different nodes are then estimated from process operating data to characterize the causal relationships among the monitored variables. Subsequently, the Bayesian inference‐based abnormality likelihood index is proposed to detect abnormal events in chemical processes. After the process fault is detected, the novel dynamic Bayesian probability and contribution indices are further developed from the transitional probabilities of monitored variables to identify the major faulty effect variables with significant upsets. With the dynamic Bayesian contribution index, the statistical inference rules are, thus, designed to search for the fault propagation pathways from the downstream backwards to the upstream process. In this way, the ending nodes in the identified propagation pathways can be captured as the root cause variables of process faults. Meanwhile, the identified fault propagation sequence provides an in‐depth understanding as to the interactive effects of faults throughout the processes. The proposed approach is demonstrated using the illustrative continuous stirred tank reactor system and the Tennessee Eastman chemical process with the fault propagation identification results compared against those of the transfer entropy‐based monitoring method. The results show that the novel networked process monitoring and diagnosis approach can accurately detect abnormal events, identify the fault propagation pathways, and diagnose the root cause variables. © 2013 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 59: 2348–2365, 2013     

Sicherung chemischer Produktionsanlagen mit Mitteln der Elektro-/Meß-, Steuerungs- und Regelungstechnik

Safeguarding of chemical production plant by means of control engineering . Control equipment is becoming increasingly important for safeguarding of plant. According to VDI/VDE 2180, sheet 3, control equipment is classified as operational equipment, as monitoring equipment, or as protective equipment. Operational and monitoring control equipment serves the proper operation of plant in its correct state or in a faulty but still acceptable state. Protective control equipment is intended to prevent occurrence of an unacceptable faulty state of the plant. It is helpful if the control equipment is classified at an early stage of planning. Preferably the protective control equipment should be considered separately from the other control equipment. It is then possible to design it in such a way that its behaviour in the event of faults can be clearly defined. A distinction is made between active faults (or functiontriggering faults) and passive faults (or function-inhibiting or blocking faults). An active fault reduces the availability of chemical plant for production by inadvertent shut-down. Passive faults of protective equipment prevent triggering of the protective function, even though the conditions for triggering are fulfilled. They adversely affect the safety of the plant. Passive faults of control equipment must therefore by prevented or kept under control. A selection of appropriate measures for achieving this is presented.     

Input reconstruction for statistical‐based fault detection and isolation

In this work, an input reconstruction scheme for detecting and isolating sensor, actuator, and process faults is proposed. The scheme uses model‐based and statistical‐based FDI methods, which yields an improved analysis of abnormal operation conditions in chemical processes. The main advantage of the proposed approach over existing works lies in the reconstruction of system inputs and the subsequent estimation of fault signatures. This advantage is demonstrated through simulation examples and the analysis of recorded process data from a reactive batch distillation column. © 2011 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 2012     

Localized Fisher discriminant analysis based complex chemical process monitoring

Complex chemical process is often corrupted with various types of faults and the fault‐free training data may not be available to build the normal operation model. Therefore, the supervised monitoring methods such as principal component analysis (PCA), partial least squares (PLS), and independent component analysis (ICA) are not applicable in such situations. On the other hand, the traditional unsupervised algorithms like Fisher discriminant analysis (FDA) may not take into account the multimodality within the abnormal data and thus their capability of fault detection and classification can be significantly degraded. In this study, a novel localized Fisher discriminant analysis (LFDA) based process monitoring approach is proposed to monitor the processes containing multiple types of steady‐state or dynamic faults. The stationary testing and Gaussian mixture model are integrated with LFDA to remove any nonstationarity and isolate the normal and multiple faulty clusters during the preprocessing steps. Then the localized between‐class and within‐class scatter mattress are computed for the generalized eigenvalue decomposition to extract the localized Fisher discriminant directions that can not only separate the normal and faulty data with maximized margin but also preserve the multimodality within the multiple faulty clusters. In this way, different types of process faults can be well classified using the discriminant function index. The proposed LFDA monitoring approach is applied to the Tennessee Eastman process and compared with the traditional FDA method. The monitoring results in three different test scenarios demonstrate the superiority of the LFDA approach in detecting and classifying multiple types of faults with high accuracy and sensitivity. © 2010 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 2011     

Adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system based faulty sensor monitoring of indoor air quality in a subway station

A new faulty sensor monitoring method based on an adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) is proposed to improve the monitoring performance of indoor air quality (IAQ) in subway stations. To enhance network performance, a data preprocessing step for detecting outliers and treating missing data is implemented before building the monitoring models. A squared prediction error (SPE) monitoring index based on the ANFIS prediction model is proposed to detect sensor faults, where the confidence limit for the SPE index is determined by using the kernel density estimation method. The proposed monitoring approach is applied to detect four typical kinds of sensor faults that may happen in the indoor space of a subway. The prediction results in the subway system indicate that the prediction accuracy of an ANFIS structure with 15 clusters is superior to that of an appropriate artificial neural network structure. Specifically, when detecting one kind of complete failure fault that happened within the normal range, the detection performance of ANFIS-based SPE outperforms that of a traditional principal component analysis method. The developed sensor monitoring technique could work well for other kinds of sensor faults resulting from a noxious underground environment.     

适应季节性氨需求的可再生能源合成氨系统优化设计

可再生能源合成氨技术不但有利于解决传统合成氨工业高能耗高排放的问题,还为可再生能源的存储和消纳提供新途径。从氨的季节性需求特性出发,构建了可再生能源合成氨系统的优化设计模型,确定了系统的最优配置及其操作方案,阐明了氨的季节性需求对可再生能源合成氨系统设计和操作的影响特性。研究表明：与将氨作为储能介质的场景相比,在将氨作为氮肥原料,考虑其季节性需求时,所需可再生能源合成氨系统的规模显著增大,使得单位合成氨的成本增加约21%;化工生产单元和储罐的负荷也随着氨的季节性需求变化呈现出不同程度的淡季和旺季;在两种应用场景下,系统中电池储能单元的操作都主要由下游的化工生产单元决定,且储能电池单元的主要作用在于平抑可再生能源波动以保证化工生产单元在可再生能源不足时的持续稳定运行并维持其低负荷运行。     

A fault magnitude based strategy for effective fault classification

A common approach in fault diagnosis is monitoring the deviations of measured variables from the values at normal operations to identify the root causes of faults. When the number of conceivable faults is larger than that of predictive variables, conventional approaches can yield ambiguous diagnosis results including multiple fault candidates. To address the issue, this work proposes a fault magnitude based strategy. Signed digraph is first used to identify qualitative relationships between process variables and faults. Empirical models for predicting process variables under assumed faults are then constructed with support vector regression (SVR). Fault magnitude data are projected onto principal components subspace, and the mapping from scores to fault magnitudes is learned via SVR. This model can estimate fault magnitudes and discriminate a true fault among multiple candidates when different fault magnitudes yield distinguishable responses in the monitored variables. The efficacy of the proposed approach is illustrated on an actuator benchmark problem.     

Statistical root cause analysis of novel faults based on digraph models

This paper investigates the challenging problem of diagnosing novel faults whose fault mechanisms and relevant historical data are not available. Most existing fault diagnosis systems are incapable to explain root causes for unanticipated, novel faults, because they rely on either models or historical data of known faulty conditions. To address this issue we propose a new framework for novel fault diagnosis, which integrates causal reasoning on signed digraph models with multivariate statistical process monitoring. The prerequisites for our approach include historical data of normal process behavior and qualitative cause–effect relationships that can be derived from process flow diagrams. In this new approach, a set of candidate root nodes is identified first via qualitative reasoning on signed digraph; then quantitative local consistency tests are implemented for each candidate based on multivariate statistical process monitoring techniques; finally, using the resulting multiple local residuals, diagnosis is performed based on the exoneration principle. The cause–effect relationships in the digraph enable automatic variable selection and the local residual interpretations for statistical monitoring. The effectiveness of this new approach is demonstrated using numerical examples based on the Tennessee Eastman process data.     

Abnormal situation management: Challenges and opportunities in the big data era

Although modern chemical processes are highly automatic, abnormal situation management (ASM) still heavily relies on human operators. Process fault detection and diagnosis (FDD) are one of the most important issues of ASM but few FDD systems have been satisfactorily applied in real chemical processes since the concept of FDD was proposed about 40 years ago. In this paper, developments of chemical process FDD are briefly reviewed. The reason why FDD has not been widely implemented in the chemical process industry is discussed. One of the insights gained is that some basic problems in FDD such as how to define faults and how many faults to diagnose have not even been addressed well while researchers tirelessly try to invent new methods to diagnose fault. A new framework is proposed based on the big data in a cloud computing environment of a big chemical corporation for addressing the challenging issues in ASM.