Use of supervisory information in process control

This article presents an approach to integrate supervision information directly into process control strategies. It focuses on one of the basic tasks of plant and process supervision: the validation of process information. A framework is suggested for how sophisticated process control functions with the knowledge of additional supervision information can react to abnormal process situations in order to keep the process running and stable. These tasks can be realised using function blocks, an established software approach for distributed control systems applicable to workstations as well as to microprocessors in remote I/O.