Optimized Gaussian-Process-Based Probabilistic Latent Variable Modeling Framework for Distributed Nonlinear Process Monitoring

Plant-wide multiunit processes generally contain numerous variables, complex relations, and strong nonlinearity, making the monitoring of such processes challenging. This work proposes a new Gaussian-process-based probabilistic latent variable (GPPLV) modeling framework for distributed monitoring of multiunit nonlinear processes. A Gaussian-process latent variable model is first established to extract the dominant features of a local unit. Using the extracted features, a correlation between the local unit and its neighboring units are then modeled through a Gaussian-process regression (GPR) model. The genetic algorithm is used to determine the ideal independent variables from the neighboring units and optimize the hyperparameters of the GPR model simultaneously. Residuals are generated and monitoring statistics are constructed using an established GPPLV model. Experimental studies on three processes: 1) a numerical example; 2) the Tennessee Eastman benchmark process; and 3) a laboratory distillation process show that compared to some common distributed process monitoring models, the proposed method performs better in showing the nature of different faults and shows higher fault detection rate for large-scale multiunit processes.