Sheet and film processes include coating, papermaking, metal rolling, and polymer film extrusion. Products produced by these processes include paper, bumper stickers, plastic bags, windshield safety glass, and sheet metal. The total capitalization of industries that rely on these processes is well over $ 500 billion worldwide. These processes are notorious for being difficult to control. The goal of this book is to present the theoretical background and practical techniques for the identification and control of sheet and film processes. It is explained why many existing industrial control systems perform poorly for sheet and film processes. Identification and control algorithms are described and illustrated which provide consistent and reliable product quality. These algorithms include an experimental design technique that ensures that informative data are collected during input-output experimentation, model identification techniques that produce a process model and an estimate of its accuracy, and control techniques that take into account actuator constraints as well as robustness to model uncertainties. The algorithms covered in this book are truly the state of the art. Variations on some of the algorithms have been implemented on industrial sheet and film processes. Other algorithms are in various stages of implementation. All of the algorithms have been applied to realistic simulation models constructed from industrial plant data; many of these studies are included in this book.

Written by leading researchers, this book collects a number of articles considering the problems of finite-precision computing in digital controllers and filters. Topics range from analysis of fragility and finite-precision effects to the design of low-complexity digital controllers.

From the reviews: "The book is an excellent combination of theory and real-world applications. Each application not only demonstrates the power of the theoretical results but also is important on its own behalf." IEEE Control Systems Magazine

Safety in industrial process and production plants is a concern of rising importance but because the control devices which are now exploited to improve the performance of industrial processes include both sophisticated digital system design techniques and complex hardware, there is a higher probability of failure. Control systems must include automatic supervision of closed-loop operation to detect and isolate malfunctions quickly. A promising method for solving this problem is "analytical redundancy", in which residual signals are obtained and an accurate model of the system mimics real process behaviour. If a fault occurs, the residual signal is used to diagnose and isolate the malfunction. This book focuses on model identification oriented to the analytical approach of fault diagnosis and identification covering: choice of model structure; parameter identification; residual generation; and fault diagnosis and isolation. Sample case studies are used to demonstrate the application of these techniques.