Adaptive and Inferential Control Systems

Chapter 22. The book by Shinskey is once more a valuable guide for the design of useful adaptive and inferential control systems. The mathematical treatment of the subject is simple and to the point. The general reader will find very instructive the following papers on adaptive control ... 

The material of the subsequent four chapters (Chapter 19, 20, 21, and 22) should be viewed as an introduction to the analysis and design of the control systems above. The subject is quite involved, and the interested reader should consult the references at the the end of Part V. In particular, the discussion on the adaptive and inferential control is limited to a simple qualitative presentation of these control systems, since a more rigorous presentation goes beyond the scope of this text. Nevertheless, in Chapter 31, the interested reader will find a mathematical treatment of the adaptive control system design. 

Part V (Chapters 19 through 22) deals with the description, analysis, and design of more complex control systems, with one controlled output. In particular, Chapter 19 introduces the concept of feedback compensation with Smith s predictor, to cope with systems possessing large dead times or inverse response. Chapter 20 describes and analyzes a variety of multiloop control systems (with one controlled output) often encountered in chemical processes, such as cascade, selective, and split-range. Chapter 21 is devoted exclusively to the analysis and design of feedforward and ratio control systems, while Chapter 22 makes a rather descriptive presentation of adaptive and inferential control schemes why they are needed and how they can be used. 

On-line adaptation is not limited to feedback systems. On-line process identification can be coupled easily with feedforward, inferential, and other control systems, thus expanding the range of their applicability. Adaptation is particularly valuable for feedforward and inferential systems because they rely heavily on good process models for their successful implementation. 

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