Qualitative modelling-an application to supervisory control of a distillation column

The authors examine the design and implementation of a knowledge based system. They investigate certain aspects of the knowledge representation problem, concentrating particularly on the use of qualitative modeling in representing deep knowledge. A novel qualitative modeling framework that draws upon established ideas, as well as some of the basic concepts of control theory, is presented. Some of the capabilities of the method were explored by applying it within a supervisory system for a simulated distillation column. Details of the application and the results of demonstration runs are presented