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Yokogawa Electric Corporation announced that Yokogawa and Shell have jointly developed Platform for Advanced Control and Estimation R5.02 and released it on July 17.
The Platform for Advanced Control and Estimation is a software suite that brings together advanced plant process control technology developed by Shell and the real-time control technology that Yokogawa has developed in its role as a control system supplier. This upgrade from version R5.01 provides enhanced functionality that will help customers optimize the control of operations throughout their plants, maintain high system availability, reduce operator workload, and improve productivity. The Platform for Advanced Control and Estimation suite is positioned as a solution in Yokogawa's OpreX Asset Operations and Optimization family.
Development Background
Yokogawa’s Platform for Advanced Control and Estimation suite delivers the following functionality:
- Multivariable model predictive control (the control of multiple variables based on predictions made using models of the dynamic characteristics of plant responses)
- Soft sensing for estimating quality in real time based on temperature, flow rate, pressure, and other process values
- Customization of calculations
Yokogawa has continued to enhance this suite in response to changing customer requirements, and the release of version R5.02 meets the need for solutions that can optimize the control of operations throughout a plant, ensure high availability, and alleviate problems with high workload caused by reductions in the number of plant operators and expansion in the range of items that must be monitored and controlled.
Enhancements
Plant-wide optimization of control with large-scale applications
With large-scale applications, advanced control systems need to be able to quickly process huge amounts of data. Version 5.01 of this software suite is suitable for small to medium-size applications and can optimize the control of individual processes. With the enhancements made to R5.02, this software suite now offers significantly greater processing speed. As a result, it can now handle large-scale applications involving multiple processes and is thus capable of optimizing the control of operations throughout a plant.
General and utility processes in plants can have an effect on or be affected by those processes that are subject to advanced control. Previously, operators had to view data on separate screens for the production control system and the advanced control system. With R5.02, operators can now view lists of all the measurement data on a single screen. By being able to access all this data in one place, they can respond more quickly to any changes.
Maintaining high system availability regardless of changes in operational conditions or aging of facilities
With this software, a trend line showing the predicted values when advanced control is active (closed loop prediction trend) can be superimposed over a trend line that is based on the actual measured values. By comparing them, it is possible to easily identify errors in a dynamic response model. Such errors are the result of a deterioration in advanced control performance caused by changes in operational conditions or the aging of facilities. System availability can be maintained by rebuilding the dynamic response model whenever these errors become significant.
R5.02 has been enhanced to enable the display of a trend line that predicts plant behavior when advanced control is inactive (open loop trend). This enables operators to know in advance what impact this will have on a process.
Improved operability for efficient operation and monitoring
With a single press of a key, operators can call up items from a list of recently displayed screens. Frequently used screens can also be accessed quickly by registering them as favorites.
Major Applications include advanced control of continuous plant processes in the oil, petrochemical, chemical, gas, and other industries.