Intelligent Hardware-Software Processing of High-Frequency Scanning Data

The constant emission of polluting gases is causing an urgent need for timely detection of harmful gas mixtures in the atmosphere. A method and algorithm of the determining spectral composition of gas with a gas analyzer using an artificial neural network (ANN) were suggested in the article. A small closed gas dynamic system was designed and used as an experimental bench for collecting and quantifying gas concentrations for testing the proposed method. This device was based on AS7265x and BMP180 sensors connected in parallel to a 3.3 V compatible Arduino Uno board via QWIIC. Experimental tests were conducted with air from the laboratory room, carbon dioxide (CO2), and a mixture of pure oxygen (O2) with nitrogen (N2) in a 9:1 ratio. Three ANNs with one input, one hidden and one output layer were built. The ANN had 5, 10, and 20 hidden neurons, respectively. The dataset was divided into three parts: 70% for training, 15% for validation, and 15% for testing. The mean square error (MSE) error and regression were analyzed during training. Training, testing, and validation error analysis were performed to find the optimal iteration, and the MSE versus training iteration was plotted. The best indicators of training and construction were shown by the ANN with 5 (five) hidden layers, and 16 iterations are enough to train, test and verify this neural network. To test the obtained neural network, the program code was written in the MATLAB. The proposed scheme of the gas analyzer is operable and has a high accuracy of gas detection with a given error of 3%. The results of the study can be used in the development of an industrial gas analyzer for the detection of harmful gas mixtures

Data-driven Soft Sensors in the Process Industry

In the last two decades Soft Sensors established themselves as a valuable alternative to the traditional means for the acquisition of critical process variables, process monitoring and other tasks which are related to process control. This paper discusses characteristics of the process industry data which are critical for the development of data-driven Soft Sensors. These characteristics are common to a large number of process industry fields, like the chemical industry, bioprocess industry, steel industry, etc. The focus of this work is put on the data-driven Soft Sensors because of their growing popularity, already demonstrated usefulness and huge, though yet not completely realised, potential. A comprehensive selection of case studies covering the three most important Soft Sensor application fields, a general introduction to the most popular Soft Sensor modelling techniques as well as a discussion of some open issues in the Soft Sensor development and maintenance and their possible solutions are the main contributions of this work

Artificial Intelligent-Based Predictive Control of Divided Wall Column

Distillation is the most popular thermal separation technique used in the chemical and petrochemical process industry for the liquid mixture separation. Certainly, the distillation has a plenty of advantages, yet it has a drawback such as more energy requirement. In order to reduce the energy consumption of the conventional distillation column, energy integration is applied within the distillation column. The most important thermally coupled distillation column sequence is the Petlyuk column, which uses two recycle streams. Petlyuk column is a novel design that integrates two distillation columns into one shell, which is known as a dividing wall column. A dividing wall column (DWC) offers the possibility to separate a multicomponent mixture into high-purity products or sharp splits. Artificial neural network predictive controller (ANNPC) has been implemented to control the DWC. The performance of the ANNPC control strategies and the dynamic response of the DWC are investigated in terms of the product composition in the different sections of the dividing wall column for the different persistent disturbances such as feed flow rate, feed compositions, and liquid split factor

A Continuous and Static Water Contaminant Detection System Using RF Microwave Principles

A continuous, static, and non-interfering water contaminant detection method is presented to measure specific water contaminants (NaCl, MgCl2, and mixture of NaCl and MgCl2) using RF microwave principles. A coil is mounted on the surface of a glass tube and the liquid sample is placed inside of the tube. An external magnetic field generated by the coil continuously measures changes in radio frequency energy. The non-contact feature of the device allows a long sensor lifetime with high sensitivity for real-time measurements. The measurement parameter is reflection coefficient (S11) and the operating frequency is 10 MHz – 5 GHz. For NaCl and MgCl2, 11 different concentrations (1000 ppm – 400 ppb) liquid solutions are prepared. Amplitude changes and frequency shifts are noticeable among different materials and concentrations. Different test materials have different radio frequencies at which they undergo excitation and the responses are identified in S11 measurement. A machine learning algorithm is introduced to analyze the measured S11 data. A support vector regressor (SVR) model is trained using the measured data of various salt samples. The training data is constructed by concatenating the 20,000 amplitudes and 20,000 phase values from the measured S11 data. The hyperparameters of the SVR are optimized using 10-fold cross-validation method. Based on the trained model, the algorithm predicts the concentrations of the liquid samples. The experimental results indicate that the device can detect concentrations as low as 400 ppb with high accuracy

NASA SBIR abstracts of 1990 phase 1 projects

The research objectives of the 280 projects placed under contract in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) 1990 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase 1 program are described. The basic document consists of edited, non-proprietary abstracts of the winning proposals submitted by small businesses in response to NASA's 1990 SBIR Phase 1 Program Solicitation. The abstracts are presented under the 15 technical topics within which Phase 1 proposals were solicited. Each project was assigned a sequential identifying number from 001 to 280, in order of its appearance in the body of the report. The document also includes Appendixes to provide additional information about the SBIR program and permit cross-reference in the 1990 Phase 1 projects by company name, location by state, principal investigator, NASA field center responsible for management of each project, and NASA contract number

Predictive modeling of die filling of the pharmaceutical granules using the flexible neural tree

In this work, a computational intelligence (CI) technique named flexible neural tree (FNT) was developed to predict die filling performance of pharmaceutical granules and to identify significant die filling process variables. FNT resembles feedforward neural network, which creates a tree-like structure by using genetic programming. To improve accuracy, FNT parameters were optimized by using differential evolution algorithm. The performance of the FNT-based CI model was evaluated and compared with other CI techniques: multilayer perceptron, Gaussian process regression, and reduced error pruning tree. The accuracy of the CI model was evaluated experimentally using die filling as a case study. The die filling experiments were performed using a model shoe system and three different grades of microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) powders (MCC PH 101, MCC PH 102, and MCC DG). The feed powders were roll-compacted and milled into granules. The granules were then sieved into samples of various size classes. The mass of granules deposited into the die at different shoe speeds was measured. From these experiments, a dataset consisting true density, mean diameter (d50), granule size, and shoe speed as the inputs and the deposited mass as the output was generated. Cross-validation (CV) methods such as 10FCV and 5x2FCV were applied to develop and to validate the predictive models. It was found that the FNT-based CI model (for both CV methods) performed much better than other CI models. Additionally, it was observed that process variables such as the granule size and the shoe speed had a higher impact on the predictability than that of the powder property such as d50. Furthermore, validation of model prediction with experimental data showed that the die filling behavior of coarse granules could be better predicted than that of fine granules

Deep Learning based Prediction of Clogging Occurrences during Lignocellulosic Biomass Feeding in Screw Conveyors

Over the last decades, there have been substantial government and private sector investments to establish a commercial biorefining industry that uses lignocellulosic biomass as feedstock to produce fuels, chemicals, and other products. However, several biorefining plants experienced material conveyance problems due to the variability and complexity of the biomass feedstock. While the problems were reported in most conveyance unit operations in the biorefining plants, screw conveyors merit special attention because they are the most common conveyors used in biomass conveyance and typically function as the last conveyance unit connected to the conversion reactors. Thus, their operating status affects the plant production rate. Therefore, detecting emerging clogging events and, ultimately, proactively adjusting operating conditions to avoid downtime is crucial to improving overall plant economics. One promising solution is the development of sensor systems to detect clogging to support automated decision-making and process control. In this study, two deep learning based algorithms are developed to detect an imminent clogging event based on the current signature and vibration signals extracted from the sensors connected to the benchtop screw conveyor system. The study focuses on three biomass materials (switchgrass, loblolly pine, and hybrid poplar) and is designed around three research objectives. The first research objective examines the relationship between the occurrence of clogging in a screw conveyor and the current and vibration signals on the different feedstocks to establish the presence of clogging event fingerprint that could be exploited in automated decision-making and process-control. The second research objective applies two deep learning algorithms to the current and vibration signals to detect the imminent occurrence of clogging and its severity for decision making with an optimization procedure. The third objective examines the robustness of the optimized deep learning algorithm to detection imminent clogging events when feedstock properties (size distribution and moisture contents) vary. In the long-term, the early clogging detection methodology developed in this study could be leveraged to develop smart process controls for biomass conveyance

Snazer: the simulations and networks analyzer

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Networks are widely recognized as key determinants of structure and function in systems that span the biological, physical, and social sciences. They are static pictures of the interactions among the components of complex systems. Often, much effort is required to identify networks as part of particular patterns as well as to visualize and interpret them.</p> <p>From a pure dynamical perspective, simulation represents a relevant <it>way</it>-<it>out</it>. Many simulator tools capitalized on the "noisy" behavior of some systems and used formal models to represent cellular activities as temporal trajectories. Statistical methods have been applied to a fairly large number of replicated trajectories in order to infer knowledge.</p> <p>A tool which both graphically manipulates reactive models and deals with sets of simulation time-course data by aggregation, interpretation and statistical analysis is missing and could add value to simulators.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We designed and implemented <it>Snazer</it>, the simulations and networks analyzer. Its goal is to aid the processes of visualizing and manipulating reactive models, as well as to share and interpret time-course data produced by stochastic simulators or by any other means.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p><it>Snazer </it>is a solid prototype that integrates biological network and simulation time-course data analysis techniques.</p