ACTC Case Studies

A case study is usually undertaken at the request of a company member wishing to investiage the application of any of the advanced technologies. These are system modelling, control engineering, expert systems and business optimisation.

An on-site meeting is used to identify the specific problem of interest and to find practical ways forward. The resulting study typically lasts between 1 and 3 months, and can take the form of simulation studies or working with real systems. The study is carried out with economic and practical factors in mind.  The results of the study are used to clearly identify operational benefits.

Case study reports are available to other ACTC members.

List of Case Studies by Industry

The following is a list of all case studies that have been carried out by the ACTC. The associated case study reports are available to ACTC members free of charge. Please contact us for more details.

Defence, Marine and Aerospace
  • Barr & Stroud: Control of a High Resolution Laser Scanner (CS15)
  • BAE SYSTEMS SSD: Kalman Filter Based Sensor Fusion (CS26)
  • BAE SYSTEMS SSD: H∞ Control for a Servo System (CS22)
  • British Aerospace: Classical versus Modern Control Design Methods for Safety Critical Control Engineering Practice (CS08) - Comparison of Classical (PID, Lead-Lag) and Robust (LQG, H∞) control for safety critical systems, includes example applications for pumped water supply system and flight control system of a short take off and vertical landing aircraft.
  • British Aerospace: Pitch Control of a Generic Canard Delta Fighter Aircraft (CS03) - Study of application of LQG control which gave improved stability and easier controller design than the original controller.
  • Marine SIG: Implementation Problems and Design of Ship Autopilots (CS16)
  • Marine SIG: Advanced and Classical Control of Non-linear Ship Positioning Systems (CS17)
  • MoD(N): Study on Effect of Rudder Slew Rate on Roll Stabilisation (CS27)
  • Rolls Royce: Control of a Gas Turbine Engine (CS01) - Comparison between the original classical (lead/lag) controller and LQG and H∞ controllers for a Pegasus Gas Turbine Engine.
  • Royal Ordnance: Expert System Based Training Simulator: Picrite Process Application (CS18)
  • Royal Ordnance: An Operational Planning Tool for the Royal Ordnance Nitro-Cellulose Process (CS14)
  • SELEX: Estimation of Friction Parameters (CS29)
  • SELEX: Predictive control for NADIR problem (CS30)
  • Thales Optronics: Integrating Pro/ENGINEER and MATLAB with ADAMS (CS23)
Automotive
  • Visteon / NI: Applying LabVIEW to Automotive Powertrain Control - Optimal Control of a TIVCT Engine (CS28)
  • NI: Modelling and Control of the Electronic Throttle (CS31)
Metals, Glass and Paper
  • British Steel: Multivariable Decoupling Control of Collector Main Pressure on Coke Ovens (CS09) - Multivariable pressure control using decoupled PI and H∞.
  • British Steel: Control of Reheat Furnace (CS04) - Investigation into the causes of temperature fluctuations in a large beam reheat furnace.
  • British Steel: Gauge Control for Cold Rolling (CS05) - Cold rolling mill modelling and application of LQG control.
  • Corus Group: Genetic Algorithms for System Identification (CS20) - There is also the GA_SYSID MATLAB toolbox that can be downloaded that accompanies this case study report.
  • T&N Technology: Gauge Control of Cold Rolling Mill (CS13) - Introductory report into cold rolling mills and gauge control.
Oil and Gas, Chemical and Pharmaceutical Industries
  • British Gas: NTS Maintenance Reduction (CS11) - Modelling and investigation of maintenance schedules for the gas National Transmission System.
  • British Gas: Self Tuning Control of Furnace Temperature (CS02) - The ACTC's own Self-Tuning Control Toolbox was used to interface to and control the temperature of a gas fired box furnance through a TCS controller. Self-tuning LQG and Self-tuning H∞ controllers were trialled.
  • British Petroleum: Introduction to Predictive Control with Application to a Hydrogen Reformer (CS12) - Presents GPC and LQGCP algorithms together with trials on Hydrogen Reformer comparing existing PID, Connoisseur and the GPC algorithm developed here.
  • Roche Products: Roche Vitamin C Modelling Report (CS10) - Modelling and investigation of future plant scenarios using a discrete event simulation.
  • Roche Products: Non-linear Model Based Control for pH (CS06) - Investigated the use of Generic Model Control (GMC), a non-linear model based method, for pH control.
  • Unilever Research: Supply Chain Management into the Year 2000 (CS19)
Power
  • Alstom Energy: Fault Diagnosis of a Simulated Industrial Gas Turbine using Identification Techniques (CS25)
  • The National Grid Company: Human Operator Error Handling Methods for Complex Systems: A State-of-the-art Survey (CS21)