Research Overview

Our research focuses on process integration for improved material and energy utilization efficiency and its implications on plant design, operation and control. The integration makes the design of a robust plantwide control to reduce the overdesign for a controllable plant system particularly challenging due to the high non-linearity and multiway dynamic interaction introduced by the material and energy recycle loops. Our research has made significant contributions towards developing a systematic procedure for addressing fundamental plantwide control system design questions of what process variables to control for satisfying the safety, stability and economic objectives, and synthesizing a robust control structure (pairing with control inputs and other enhancements) for controlling the same. We are also researching the systematic leveraging of the immense flexibility in plantwide control system synthesis to optimize the process design for controllability. Our work has a practical orientation and is aptly summarized in the quote, "If you cannot explain it to a six year old, you do not understand it yourself", by Einstein.