US 12,298,751 B2
Modularized model predictive control for industrial plants
Jan Christoph Schlake, Darmstadt (DE); Mario Hoernicke, Landau (DE); and Dirk Schulz, Meckenheim (DE)
Assigned to ABB Schweiz AG, Baden (CH)
Filed by ABB Schweiz AG, Baden (CH)
Filed on Jul. 22, 2021, as Appl. No. 17/382,387.
Application 17/382,387 is a continuation of application No. PCT/EP2020/051040, filed on Jan. 16, 2020.
Claims priority of application No. 19153605 (EP), filed on Jan. 24, 2019.
Prior Publication US 2021/0349453 A1, Nov. 11, 2021
Int. Cl. G05B 19/418 (2006.01); G05B 13/04 (2006.01)
CPC G05B 19/41885 (2013.01) [G05B 13/048 (2013.01); G05B 2219/31229 (2013.01)] 15 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method for generating a dynamic model of an industrial plant having: a plurality of physical processes that are dependent such that an outcome of at least one first process is fed into at least one second process; a plurality of low-level controllers, each controller acting upon at least one physical process such that at least one process variable of the at least one physical process is controlled to match a set-point of the low-level controller; and a plurality of sensors, each sensor being configured to measure at least one process variable of one of the physical processes, and/or of the plant as a whole, the set-points of the low-level controllers and current values of the process variables measured by the sensors being the inputs of the model, and predicted future values of the process variables that are likely to result from applying the set-points to the low-level controllers being the outputs of the model, the method comprising:
obtaining a division of a representation of the plant into a plurality of sub-units corresponding to one or more physical process modules of a modular enabled automation solution at the industrial plant, an input-output behavior of each sub-unit being characterized by respective subsets of the set-points, subsets of the current values of process variables, and subsets of the future predicted values of process variables;
obtaining a dynamic sub-model for each sub-unit based on a digital representation of the respective one or more physical process modules of the obtained sub-unit, inputs of the sub-model comprising the subset of set-points and the subset of current values of process variables, and outputs of the sub-model comprising the subset of future predicted values of process variables;
obtaining, from a layout of the plant, and/or from an existing composition of the plant from physical process modules, dependencies between the sub-units; and
combining the sub-models into the model of the plant according to the dependencies for the manufacture of a given product, wherein the physical process modules of the model are linked together based on a temporary linking for the time during which a configuration of the plant for a process that manufactures the given product shall be used and until the sub-models are recombined for a configuration of the plant that is adapted to a further process that manufactures a further product.