Enhancing data-based fault isolation through nonlinear control: Application to a polyethylene reactor

The present work proposes a method for data-based fault diagnosis that takes into account the design of the feedback control law in order to perform fault detection and isolation. This method allows isolating certain faults in a specifically structured closed-loop system using only a data-based approach. This is achieved through the design of appropriate nonlinear control laws that allow isolating given faults by effectively decoupling the dependency between certain process state variables. The theoretical results are demonstrated through a gas-phase polyethylene reactor example.