Alan Lindsay Prentice

PARAMETRIC MODEL PREDICTIVE CONTROL OF AIR SEPARATION

Abstract This paper describes the application of Parametric Model Predictive Control to small processing units, in particular small Air Separation plants. Multiparametric optimization techniques are used to rigorously solve the MPC problem in two steps: an offline solution which generates a parametric mapping of the optimal control adjustments, and an online solution which reduces to a simple lookup operation. Because of the speed and simplicity of this lookup operation we are able to implement MPC in low-end computing devices such as PLCs, reaping the benefits of model-based control by implementing it at low cost in small plants where otherwise it would not be justified by the cost/benefit ratio.