Optimization-Solvers-On-PLC

This is an embedded optimization research project that was supported by ABB corporate research center, Bangalore, India. The key research question was: can we use Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) for our online optimization needs for various control applications? If yes, then this allows performing local plant optimization onsite and avoids latency of outer process control loops. We selected few open source optimization solvers for convex and non-convex problems and deployed them on PLCs. We solved a compressor parallel train load optimization problem online in fraction of seconds. The computational study was also conducted on benchmark problems to ensure feasibility of large scale optimization problems. The results are documented in [1].

[1]. Purohit, A., Buch, J. "Evaluation of optimization solvers on programmable logic controller." In 2015 IEEE Conference on Control Applications (CCA), pp. 533-538. IEEE, 2015.

(ABB INCRC) Amit Purohit, Vinay Kariwala, Venkateswaran Narayanan