Monitoring of low-level PID control loops

In this work, we focus on the problem of monitoring and retuning of low-level proportional-integral-derivative (PID) control loops used to regulate control actuators to the values computed by advanced model-based control systems like model predictive control (MPC). We consider the case where the real-time measurement of the actuation level is unavailable, and thus PID controller monitoring has to be achieved on the basis of process state measurements. A fault detection and isolation (FDI) method involving process models and realtime process measurements is used to monitor the PID control loops and compute appropriate residuals. Once poor tuning is detected and isolated, a PID tuning method based on the estimated transfer function of the control actuator is applied to the isolated, poorly functioning PID controller. An example of a nonlinear reactor-separator process operating under MPC control with low-level PID controllers regulating the control actuators is used to demonstrate the approach.