A framework of agent-oriented analysis and integrated modeling for process operation systems

For the past years, several software and computer tools have been developed to aid the chemical process operations (CAPO) including real-time simulation, on-line optimization, fault diagnosis, process monitoring, et al. These tools were designed respectively and didn’t collaborate efficiently, which makes it difficult to integrate different engineering tasks for optimal process operation. In this paper, an agent-oriented analysis (AOA) methodology is presented to address this problem. Using AOA, elements in the process operation system are divided into two parts, agents and objects. Objects are the equipment, units and processes. Agents are the variable engineering tasks on the actual process, also called operation task models. Based on the modeling for the process operation system, three integration strategies are addressed to implement the integration of the whole process operation system. The three strategies are integration of process models, integration of operation tasks, and participation of operators. Also presented are how to accomplish the three strategies and the system architecture.