The idea of iterative process optimization based on collected output
measurements, or "real-time optimization" (RTO), has gained much prominence in
recent decades, with many RTO algorithms being proposed, researched, and
developed. While the essential goal of these schemes is to drive the process to
its true optimal conditions without violating any safety-critical, or "hard",
constraints, no generalized, unified approach for guaranteeing this behavior
exists. In this two-part paper, we propose an implementable set of conditions
that can enforce these properties for any RTO algorithm. The first part of the
work is dedicated to the theory behind the sufficient conditions for
feasibility and optimality (SCFO), together with their basic implementation
strategy. RTO algorithms enforcing the SCFO are shown to perform as desired in
several numerical examples - allowing for feasible-side convergence to the
plant optimum where algorithms not enforcing the conditions would fail.Comment: Working paper; supplementary material available at:
http://infoscience.epfl.ch/record/18807