Design and Experimental Evaluation of an Automatically Reconfigurable controller for Process Plants

A digital controller that reconfigures control strategies as a result of changes in plant operating conditions has been developed and demonstrated. The reconfiguration logic involves the organization of available plant information, the definition and identification of plant operating conditions, the selection of the appropriate control law for the given operating condition, and the verification of the control choice through on-line performance evaluation. Also included is a decision and supervisory logic which interfaces with a knowledge base to insure that plant operating guidelines, procedures, and specifications are not exceeded. This methodology is entirely general and may be used with any process system. It was demonstrated experimentally on the 5 MWt MIT Research Reactor. The reconfigurable controller successfully controlled the reactor power under steady-state, power maneuver, and experimentally-induced anomalies in the control laws.