Advanced Control Unleashed: Plant Performance Management for Optimum Benefit [Book Review]

December 2003 IEEE Control Systems Magazine Advanced Control Unleashed: Plant Performance Management for Optimum Benefit by T.L. Blevins, G.K. McMillan, W.K. Wojsznis, and M.W. Brown, The Instrumentation, Systems, and Automation Society, 2003, US$89.00, ISBN: 1-55617-815-8. Reviewed by Michael Johnson and Alberto Sanchez. The cover of this book shows a large hand dramatically squeezing $100 bills from what appears to be a petrochemical plant. The title is similarly dramatic: Advanced Control Unleashed, something we would all like to achieve! As we read in the acknowledgments of strong support from Emerson Process Management, and as the DeltaV advanced control software is used in the text, the reader has hopes for a strong industrially flavored book. We also find a Foreword contributed by Prof. K.J. Aström, adding to the impression that this is going to be an interesting read. The table of contents usefully reveals what is considered to be current in advanced industrial process control. The book begins with a chapter on foundations and then a chapter on APC pathways (as is typical in this book, we learn only much later on that APC stands for advanced process control). This is followed by a chapter on evaluating system performance and then one on abnormal situation management. At Chapter 6, we hit the first of the control topics, namely, automated tuning. This chapter, which considers PID tuning, is themed around the autotune culture of the relay experiment. Other PID tuning methods and issues are also introduced. Fuzzy logic control appears in Chapter 7, and something called properties estimation using linear estimation and neural net techniques constitutes Chapter 8. Chapter 9 has over 70 pages devoted to model-based predictive control. The concluding Chapter 10, called Virtual Plant, shows how simulation software can be used to demonstrate that “the virtual plant can go where you don’t want the real plant to go or don’t think the real plant can go.” The list of contents is what might be expected in this type of book, that is, a good mixture of some process operational topics and some advanced control methods. Each chapter comprises three sections. Firstly, there is Practice, which gives an overview and usually has a section on opportunities assessment, where the reader can learn what potential benefits might accrue from using the methods of the chapter. The middle section of each chapter is Applications, which usually includes subsections on General Procedures and Rules of Thumb. Finally, a section entitled Theory closes each chapter. So does the text unleash advanced control? Regrettably, we have to conclude that it does not. Unfortunately, the sequence of chapter sections, Practice, Applications, Theory, just does not work. The Theory section is placed at the end of chapters presumably following (in our opinion) the misguided view that the average engineer cannot understand simple theory. But it is the theory sections that actually explain the control methods. So, as you approach each chapter, the sections Practice and Applications are written as though the reader already fully understands the methods, techniques, and their sometimes advanced control terminology. To give just one or two examples from Chapter 6 on automated tuning, right at the beginning of the Practice section, we read out of the blue on page 187 that “The Lambda tuning method with a large Lambda factor provides....” There is no reference as to where and what this is all about; in fact, you have to go to page Interested in Reviewing?