IEEE ICMA2006 Conference

Plenary Talk

A hybrid intelligent optimal control method for the whole production line and applications

Tianyou Chai, Ph.D.

Director of National Research Center for Metallurgical Automation Technology, Professor

Department of Automatic Control

Northeastern University, P.R.China

Abstract:

With ever increased needs for an improved product quality, production efficiency, and cost in today乫s globalized world market, advanced process control should not only realize the accuracy of each control loops, but also has the ability to achieve an optimization control of global production indices that are closely related to the improved product quality, enhanced production efficiency and reduced consumption. As a result, the optimal control for the global production indices has attracted an increased attention of various process industries. The optimal control of the global production indices requires an optimal combination of the production indices, technical indices and the operation of each control loops. In this paper, a hybrid intelligent control strategy is proposed for process industries. This new strategy consists of three control layers, namely the intelligent optimization of the global production indices, the intelligent optimal control of the technical indices and the intelligent process control,. The intelligent optimization of the global production indices is composed of the setting model of the technical indices, the predictor of the global production indices, the feedback and prediction analysis adjustment models. The intelligent optimal control of the technique indices consists of the setpoints model of control loops, the prediction of technical indices, the feedback and feedfoword regulators. The intelligent process control is then composed of normal decoupled PID controllers, decoupled nonlinear PID controllers with a neural network feedforword compersator for un-modeled dynamics and a switching mechanism. Such a control structure can automatically transfer the global production indices into a required number of setpoints for each control loops.  Moreover, when the system is subjected to either operating point changes or unexpected disturbances, setpoints of the control loops can be adaptively updated and the outputs of the control loops are made to follow the updated setpoints so that the global production indices can be controlled into their targeted ranges to realize the optimization control of the global production indices. The proposed method has been successfully applied to the largest hematite minerals processing factory in China , where remarkable social and economic benefits have been achieved. Such an industrial application has successfully demonstrated the performance of the proposed optimal control method which will therefore has a high potential for further and much wider applications.

Tianyou Chai received the PhD degree from Northeastern University , P.R.China in 1985. Since 1985, he has been with Northeastern University where he became professor in 1988. He is Member of Chinese Academy of Engineering. He has been director of National Research Center for Metallurgical Automation Technology since 1997. He served as Member of Technical Board of IFAC and Chairman of Coordinating Committee on Manufacturing and Instrumentation of IFAC from 1996 to 1999. He has been serving as Deputy Director of Experts Committee of Advanced Manufacturing and Automation in High-tech Research and Development Program of China from 2001 to 2006.

His research interests include adaptive control, intelligent decoupling control, and integrated automation systems. He has published more than two hundred papers in international journals and international conferences. He developed several integrated automation systems, which have been successfully applied in the process industries in China , such as metallurgy industry and electric power industry.

He was the recipient of two prizes of National Science and Technology Progress Award in 1999 and again in 2001, He was awarded the title of Ho Leung Ho Lee Foundation Technological Science Prize in 2002 and Science and Technology Honor Prize of Liaoning Province in 2003.