James B. Rawlings Research Group

Brett Stewart B.S. Ch.E., University of Texas, 2005 bstewart[AT]bevo[DOT]che[DOT]wisc[DOT]edu

Current Work

Brett's research focuses on the practical implementation of cooperative control for chemical plants. Although there exists a rich theory for cooperative model predictive control, several factors impede its acceptance as a viable control methodology. For instance, the communication structure of cooperative control necessitates each controller receives input trajectories from all other controllers after each optimization iteration. This structure, in some circumstances, is more complex than communication necessary for centralized control. Also the cooperative control algorithm does not currently permit constraints coupled between subsystems, a class of constraints common to chemical plants. Augmenting the cooperative model prective control theory for these cases is a current area of research.

Personal Web Page: jbrwww.che.wisc.edu/~bstewart