Feedback destabilising control of electro-osmotic flow for reducing fouling and enhancing productivity of membrane systems. This project aims to develop a new approach to improving the productivity of membrane systems. With over $9 billion worth of membrane-based desalination plants either in operation, under construction or being planned in Australia, the expected outcomes of this project will lead to significant social and economic benefit and provide greater water security.
Control and communications for high value distributed electrical storage. The project aims to develop a new framework to support the successful deployment of resilient ‘prosumer-based’ energy systems. The increasing deployment of new energy technologies, such as solar photovoltaics, wind turbines, and battery and other energy storages, challenges the current operating regimes of energy systems. The successful and active participation of prosumers, who are both producers and consumers of energy, ....Control and communications for high value distributed electrical storage. The project aims to develop a new framework to support the successful deployment of resilient ‘prosumer-based’ energy systems. The increasing deployment of new energy technologies, such as solar photovoltaics, wind turbines, and battery and other energy storages, challenges the current operating regimes of energy systems. The successful and active participation of prosumers, who are both producers and consumers of energy, becomes a critical issue in the operation and management of such systems. The proposed framework explores ways to integrate new technology into existing systems, focusing on new methods of energy management with interactions with millions of devices and storage units, and real-time communications to devices.Read moreRead less
Cloud scheduling and management of energy systems with real-time support. This project aims to research cloud scheduling and management of modern energy systems with real-time communication support. The approach consists of optimisation with balanced benefits for customers, aggregators and network service providers for modern energy systems; real-time communication support for unified energy scheduling and management over many microgrids; and cloud energy scheduling and management with deadline ....Cloud scheduling and management of energy systems with real-time support. This project aims to research cloud scheduling and management of modern energy systems with real-time communication support. The approach consists of optimisation with balanced benefits for customers, aggregators and network service providers for modern energy systems; real-time communication support for unified energy scheduling and management over many microgrids; and cloud energy scheduling and management with deadline guarantee. This project is expected to facilitate increasing deployment of disruptive energy technologies on a massive scale, create opportunities for energy industries, and maintain Australia’s leading position in renewable energy.Read moreRead less
Distributionally robust dynamic optimisation for nonlinear switched system. Biochemical production utilising fermentation processes evidences poor product repeatability. This project aims to control and optimise 1,3-propanediol production via microbial fermentation. 1,3-propanediol is an essential ingredient for many polymeric materials and is present in cosmetics, personal care and cleaning products. New theory and parallel algorithms will be developed for the control and optimisation of the mi ....Distributionally robust dynamic optimisation for nonlinear switched system. Biochemical production utilising fermentation processes evidences poor product repeatability. This project aims to control and optimise 1,3-propanediol production via microbial fermentation. 1,3-propanediol is an essential ingredient for many polymeric materials and is present in cosmetics, personal care and cleaning products. New theory and parallel algorithms will be developed for the control and optimisation of the microbial fermentation of 1,3-propanediol production, where the bacteria kinetic parameters are uncertain without full knowledge of the probability distribution. This theory will also be applicable to other fermentation processes. The project outcomes are expected to significantly improve the productivity of the biochemical engineering industry involving fermentation processes.Read moreRead less
Dissipativity based distributed model predictive control for complex industrial processes. This project will extend and improve the model predictive control technology, which is the most widely used advanced control approach in process industries. The results will potentially benefit the Australian mineral processing industry where many processes are geographically distributed, leading to more cost-effective operation.
Integrated Approach to Plantwide Fault Diagnosis and Fault-tolerant Control. This project aims to develop a new approach to detect and reduce the impact of faults in industrial plants. Operations of modern industrial processes increasingly depend on automatic control systems, which can make the plants susceptible to faults such as sensor/actuator failures. Based on the concept of dissipative systems, the project aims to develop a novel integrated approach to distributed fault diagnosis and fault ....Integrated Approach to Plantwide Fault Diagnosis and Fault-tolerant Control. This project aims to develop a new approach to detect and reduce the impact of faults in industrial plants. Operations of modern industrial processes increasingly depend on automatic control systems, which can make the plants susceptible to faults such as sensor/actuator failures. Based on the concept of dissipative systems, the project aims to develop a novel integrated approach to distributed fault diagnosis and fault-tolerant control for plant-wide processes. It aims to capture the key dynamic features of normal and abnormal processes by their dissipativity properties, and to use these to develop an efficient online fault diagnosis approach based on process input and output trajectories.Read moreRead less
Control of Distributed Energy Storage System using Vanadium Batteries. This project aims to develop a new control approach to distributed energy storage at stack, system and microgrid levels, utilising one of the most promising flow battery technologies - vanadium redox batteries. This is the first attempt of a storage centric approach that includes: an integrated approach to design and control of vanadium flow batteries with novel advanced power electronics technologies to achieve optimal charg ....Control of Distributed Energy Storage System using Vanadium Batteries. This project aims to develop a new control approach to distributed energy storage at stack, system and microgrid levels, utilising one of the most promising flow battery technologies - vanadium redox batteries. This is the first attempt of a storage centric approach that includes: an integrated approach to design and control of vanadium flow batteries with novel advanced power electronics technologies to achieve optimal charging/discharging conditions; and, a scalable distributed energy storage and power management approach incorporating energy pricing for storage dispatch that allows distributed autonomous controllers to achieve optimal local techno-economic performance and microgrid-wide efficiency and reliability.Read moreRead less
Distributed nonlinear control based on differential dissipativity. This project aims to investigate the process control methodologies crucial to smart manufacturing It aims to develop a distributed optimisation-based nonlinear control approach for plant-wide flexible manufacturing, which can achieve time-varying operational targets including production rates and product specifications to meet dynamic market demands. This includes a contraction-based nonlinear distributed control framework that e ....Distributed nonlinear control based on differential dissipativity. This project aims to investigate the process control methodologies crucial to smart manufacturing It aims to develop a distributed optimisation-based nonlinear control approach for plant-wide flexible manufacturing, which can achieve time-varying operational targets including production rates and product specifications to meet dynamic market demands. This includes a contraction-based nonlinear distributed control framework that ensures plant-wide stability at any feasible set-points or references and a distributed economic model predictive control approach that coordinates autonomous controllers to achieve plant-wide economic objectives in a self-organising manner. The outcomes of this project are expected to form a process control framework for next-generation smart plants.Read moreRead less