The Industrial Control Group

Mission
To do research and provide consultation services in the areas of process control, state estimation, and the modelling of industrial systems.

Aim
To be the most recognisable automatic control group in Australasia.

Vision
To provide research opportunities for post graduate students in the illumination field and to further develop AUT’s links with the Lighting Industry.

Background

The Industrial Control group undertakes a mixture of applied and theoretical research in the areas of modelling, simulation and control with a special emphasis to industrial processes such as pulp and paper manufacture, pharmaceutical production, and biological ecosystems.

Previous industrial projects of the group have included the development of a model-based control of a wet-end of board machine, the development of a dynamic model of a continuous Kamyr pulp digester, and a transport model of fresh water ecosystems.

Previous theoretical projects have included the analysis of modelling of discontinuous and hybrid systems common in the process industries, the development of fast MPC controllers suitable for embedded systems, and rapid and robust auto-tuners.

Current & Open Projects

• Development of a robust single-button auto-tuner intended for a simple microcontroller.
• Development of a portable control-loop monitoring station
• Output-based optimal control strategies
• Sloppy sample time and MPC controllers
• Modelling of the chaotic nature of New Zealand’s electrical supply

Group leader:
Associate Professor David Wilson

David Wilson obtained his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering at the University of Queensland, Australia in 1990. Since then he has worked at ETH in Zürich, and as a senior lecturer in the Department of Electrical Engineering at Karlstad University, Sweden.

Currently he is an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Auckland University of Technology, a corporate member of the Institute of Chemical Engineers (UK), and an Associate editor for the Journal of Process Control.

His main research interests are modelling, simulation and control of industrial processes particularly focussed on the pulp and paper industries.