Qualitative control, diagnostic and supervision of complex processes

Process supervision takes place on top of classical control, and monitoring, and Qualitative Supervision and Diagnostics is an attempt to formalize operator skill and process knowledge, as well as the heuristics about the evaluation of the behaviour of the complete system. The Qualitative Supervisor observes and evaluates the situation of the process, and expresses it in symbolic terms so as to make inferences and propose decisions. Signals, variables and indicators of situation are translated into symbolic values with likelihood coefficients, then propositions can be deduced that take the form of production rules, and can be manipulated by inferential mechanisms of Artificial Intelligence.