Integration of Process Simulators in Advanced Process Control Solutions

Abstract

This paper presents a novel approach to test and to pretune advanced controllers to reduce the onsite work of control engineers and to train operators using advanced control solutions. Following the proposed approach a simulation framework has been developed where detailed process model realized in Matlab which is connected via OPC (Object-Linking and Embedding for Process Control) to the Profit Controller of Honeywell. With the application of the resulted simulation system the model predictive control (MPC) of a nonlinear crystallizer has been analysed. The case study demonstrates the efficiency of the proposed approach and the illustrative results show that the linear and robust MPC is an adequate controller of nonlinear crystallizers.