Disturbance detection and isolation by dynamic principal component analysis

In this paper we extend previous work by ourselves and other researchers in the use of principal component analysis (PCA) for statistical process control in chemical processes. PCA has been used by several authors to develop techniques to monitor chemical processes and detect the presence of disturbances [1–5]. In past work, we have developed methods which not only detect disturbances, but isolate the sources of the disturbances [4]. The approach was based on static PCA models, T2 and Q charts [6], and a model bank of possible disturbances. In this paper we use a well-known ‘time lag shift’ method to include dynamic behavior in the PCA model. The proposed dynamic PCA model development procedure is desirable due to its simplicity of construction, and is not meant to replace the many well-known and more elegant procedures used in model identification. While dynamic linear model identification, and time lag shift are well known methods in model building, this is the first application we are aware of in the area of statistical process monitoring. Extensive testing on the Tennessee Eastman process simulation [7] demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed methodology.