The paper describes an approach to the identification and control of t
he cross-directional (CD) properties of web-forming processes, and its
application to polymer him extrusion. Discrete orthonormal Chebyshev
polynomials are used to model the CD behaviour. This allows a Chebyshe
v domain estimator for CD profile response to be formulated, and const
rained Chebyshev domain optimisation of the CD profile to be used. The
result is an identification and control procedure for the CD profile
problem which is consistent in its use of the Chebyshev framework, and
which is also applicable to other web-forming processes. (C) 1998 Els
evier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.