An adaptive fault-tolerant control framework with agent-based systems

An adaptive hierarchical framework for process supervision and fault-tolerant control with agent-based systems is presented. The framework consists of modules for fault detection and diagnosis (FDD), system identification and distributed control, and a hierarchical structure for performance-based agent adaptation. Multivariate continuous process monitoring methodologies and several fault discrimination and classification techniques are implemented in the FDD modules to be used by multiple agents. In the process supervision layer, the continuous intramodular communication between FDD and control modules communicates the existence of an abnormality in the process, type of the abnormality, and affected process sections to the distributed model predictive control agents. In the agent management layer, the performances of all FDD and control agents are evaluated under specific process conditions. Performance-based consensus criteria are used to prioritize the best-performing agents in consensus decision making in every level of process supervision and fault-tolerant control. The collective performance of the supervision system is improved via performance-based consensus decision making and adaptation. The effectiveness of the proposed adaptive agent-based framework for fault-tolerant control is illustrated using a simulated continuous stirred-tank reactor network. Copyright (C) 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.