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Expert supervision and control of a large-scale plant

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Abstract

The process industry and the cement industry in particular, is rapidly realising the importance of expert systems for the control of large-scale production processes which have hitherto defied solution by conventional methods. Where the operational environment of a process industry is subject to vagueness and uncertainty, then expert control offers new opportunities for increased production, fuel economy, and enhanced product quality.

This paper outlines a large-scale expert supervision and control system which was developed as part of a long-term project to apply advanced concepts of CIM to a cement production plant. The system comprises a cluster of nine expert subsystems using fuzzy logic, four of which are arranged in a multilayer architecture to synergistically control a rotary kiln and cooler complex. Experience with the real-time expert system since 1985, when it was first commissioned, has resulted in increases of the order of 4–5% in productivity and energy reduction as well as reduced plant maintenance over conventional manual control.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Systems and Control, Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Patras, Greece

    Robert E. King

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  1. Robert E. King
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King, R.E. Expert supervision and control of a large-scale plant. J Intell Robot Syst 5, 167–176 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00444294

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00444294

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