Techniques for stiction diagnosis and compensation in process control loops

Loss of performance due to stiction in control valves is an important problem that needs to be solved. Industrial practitioners have articulated that stiction diagnosis from routine operating data is a component that is urgently needed for automated controller performance monitoring and improvement. While the need is well recognized, a solution that is industrially acceptable is extremely challenging. Industrial solutions preclude either invasive testing of valves or maintenance of a large database on valve characteristics for efficient stiction diagnosis. The two key industrial requirements for any stiction diagnosis technique are: the technique has to be non-invasive, and should work with routine operational data. This paper deals with the development of stiction diagnosis and compensation algorithms