A Software Platform for Adaptive Predictive Expert Control Application

Abstract

This chapter presents the first platform designed for the application of ADEX technology. ADEX COP v.1 was designed so that the technical realization of adaptive predictive expert control described in the previous Parts of this book is achieved in such a way that the user can apply the technology from its concepts, without knowing the details of such realization. The design allows the user to integrate ADEX controllers into the logic of commercially available control systems and define how they are to operate by the simple configuration of a set of structure variables for each of the individual controllers. Also, it describes the physical meaning of the structure variables and presents guidelines for their configuration in various industrial application scenarios. In addition, it describes how the integration of the ADEX controllers within the logic of the system controlling the process enables the definition of optimized control strategies (OCS) and, therefore, the operation of optimized adaptive control systems capable of guiding the critical process variables to their optimum functioning points in accordance with a performance criterion. However, the code of the ADEX controllers, in this version of ADEX COP, had to be executed in an external PC communicated via OPC with the plant control system.