PROP: An Expert System for Process Control in Thermal Power Plants

摘要

The impact of expert systems technology in the industrial process environment is well recognized. In particular, the development of advanced equipment, that acts as an intelligent assistant to the operator by supporting him in complex activities, is one of the most promising fields for the application of knowledge based systems. Referring to this field, we present the design and implementation of PROP, an expert system for on-line monitoring and diagnosis of process water quality in a thermal power plant. PROP, which acquires the data directly from the plant, through sensors and from the operator, through the console keyboard, timely detects and identifies pollutants and suggests proper interventions to the operator. The use of a knowledge based approach to tackle this problem gives many advantages. The most important one is that we can represent the knowledge about the domain at a higher abstraction level, and in a more flexible, effective and natural way in comparison with more traditional programming methods. (ERA citation 14:004401)