Supervisory Control of Mode-switch Processes; Application to a flexible beam

Many processes operate only around a limited number of operation points. In order to have adequate control around each operation point, an adaptive controller could be used. Then, if the operation point changes often, a large number of parameters would have to be adapted over and over again. This prohibits application of conventional adaptive control, which is more suited for processes with slowly changing parameters. Furthermore, continuous adaptation is not always needed or desired. An extension of adaptive control is presented, in which for each operation point the process behaviour can be stored in a memory, retrieved from it and evaluated. These functions are coordinated by a “supervisor”. This concept is referred to as supervisory control. It leads to an adaptive control structure which, after a learning phase, quickly adjusts the controller parameters based on retrieval of old information, without the need to fully releam each time. This approach has been tested on an experimental set-up of a flexible beam, but it is directly applicable to processes in e.g. the (petro)chemical industry as well.