Computer Control in the Process Industries

Techniques such as dead time compensation, adaptive control and Kalman filtering have been around for some time, but as yet find little application in industry. This is due to several reasons, including:

• Articles in the literature usually assume that the reader is familiar with a specific topic and are therefore often difficult for the practicing control engineer to comprehend.
• Many practicing control engineers in the process industry have a chemical engineering background and did not receive a control engineering education.
• There is a wide gap between theory and practical implementation, since implementation is primarily concerned with robustness, and theory is not. The user therefore has to build an "expert shell" in order to achieve the desired robustness. Little is published on this issue, however.

This book tries to promote the use of advanced control techniques by taking the reader from basic theory to practical implementation.