Robust alarm generation strategy

A novel alarm-system design strategy, which takes full advantage of the inh erent hardware and spatial redundancy in a process network, is proposed in this paper. Specifically, systematic procedures have been developed to iden tify independent methods for evaluating any alarm variable in the process a nd to synthesize corresponding alarm generation logic. In order to implemen t this logic, the error models in data reconciliation and the formulas for evaluating conditional probabilities of type I and II mistakes have also be en derived. The results of simulation studies show that it is indeed superi or to any of the existing design techniques. This is because the resulting alarm system is appropriately tailored to minimize the expected loss. More importantly, it is robust in the sense that the system performs satisfactor ily even under the influence of various sensor malfunctions. (C) 2000 Elsev ier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.