Western University Scholarship@Western Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository 6-26-2017 12:00 AM Design and Implementation of Smart Sensors with Capabilities of Process Fault Detection and Variable Prediction An He The University of Western Ontario Supervisor Dr. Jin Jiang The University of Western Ontario Graduate Program in Electrical and Computer Engineering A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree in Master of Engineering Science © An He 2017 Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd Part of the Controls and Control Theory Commons, Electrical and Electronics Commons, and the Process Control and Systems Commons Recommended Citation He, An, "Design and Implementation of Smart Sensors with Capabilities of Process Fault Detection and Variable Prediction" (2017). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 4687. https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/4687 This Dissertation/Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship@Western. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository by an authorized administrator of Scholarship@Western. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ii Abstract A typical sensor consists of a sensing element and a transmitter. The major functions of a transmitter are limited to data acquisition and communication. The recently developed transmitters with ‘smart’ functions have been focused on easy setup/maintenance of the transmitter itself such as self-calibration and self-configuration. Recognizing the growing computational capabilities of microcontroller units (MCUs) used in these transmitters and underutilized computational resources, this thesis investigates the feasibility of adding additional functionalities to a transmitter to make it ‘smart’ without modifying its foot- print, nor adding supplementary hardware. Hence, a smart sensor is defined as sensing elements combined with a smart transmitter. The added functionalities enhance a smart sensor with respect to performing process fault detection and variable prediction. This thesis starts with literature review to identify the state-of-the-arts in this field and also determine potential industry needs for the added functionalities. Particular attentions have been paid to an existing commercial temperature transmitter named NCS-TT105 from Microcyber Corporation. Detailed examination has been made in its internal hardware architecture, software execution environment, and additional computational resources available for accommodating additional functions. Furthermore, the schemes of the algorithms for realizing process fault detection and variable prediction have been examined from both theoretical and feasibility perspectives to incorporate onboard NCS-TT105. An important body of the thesis is to implement additional functions in the MCUs of NCS- TT105 by allocating real-time execution of different tasks with assigned priorities in the real-time operating system (RTOS). The enhanced NCS-TT105 has gone through extensive evaluation on a physical process control test facility under various normal/fault conditions. The test results are satisfactory and design specifications have been achieved. To the best knowledge of the author, this is the first time that process fault detection and variable prediction have been implemented right onboard of a commercial transmitter. The enhanced smart transmitter is capable of providing the information of incipient faults in the process and future changes of critical process variables. It is believed that this is an initial step towards the realization of distributed intelligence in process control, where important decisions regarding the process can be made at a sensor level. Keywords: Smart Sensor, Process Fault Detection, Variable Prediction, Real-time Operating System (RTOS) iii Acknowledgments I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Jin Jiang, for his motivation, expertise, immense knowledge, patience, and dedication. His guidance and inspiration helped me in the research and methods of studying. It was a grateful journey to learn from him and improve myself. I would further like to thank Dr. Xinhong Huang for her insightful guidance, encouragement, commitment and friendship. Without her support, this thesis would never have reached this stage. I also feel very grateful to Dr. Vijay Parsa, Dr. Lyndon Brown, and Dr. Ahmed Hussein for their valuable courses. Leveraging the knowledge I learned from the course, I was able to realize my research and made rapid progress in my study. I would also like to thank Dr. Mehrdad R. Kermani, Dr. Ilia Polushin, and Dr. Rajni Patel for letting me auditing their courses. The crossed knowledge broadened my views and inspired my ideas. I have deep gratitude to thank the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), and University Network of Excellence in Nuclear Engineering (UNENE) for providing financial support throughout my graduate program. I would also like to thank the generous support of transmitter implementation platform from Microcyber Corporation. I would also like to acknowledge the cooperation and technical support from Dr. Hong Wang, Mr. Jianwei Wei, Mr. Dekui Ning, and Mr. Zuye Yang from Microcyber Corporation; and Dr. Aidong Xu from Shenyang Institute of Automation Chinese Academy of Sciences. Without their support, I would not have achieved the accomplishment on practical application. I feel very lucky that I have a wonderful research team. I am grateful to my colleague, Dr. Sungwhan Cho for his expertise and research suggestions; Dr. Ataul Bari for giving generously of his time offering help in the lab; Dr. Drew J. Rankin, Dr. Dennis Michaelson, Xirong Ning, and Syed Ahmed Raza for advices, discussions, and conversations. Finally, I feel so grateful to my family for educating me to have a brave heart and providing me constant encouragement. They always back me up. This accomplishment would not have been possible without them. iv This thesis is dedicated to my parents for their love, endless support, and encouragement v Table of Contents Abstract .......................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgments ......................................................................................................... iii Table of Contents ............................................................................................................v List of Tables................................................................................................................. ix List of Figures ............................................................................................................... xi List of Abbreviations ....................................................................................................xiv Nomenclature ............................................................................................................ xviii Chapter 1 .........................................................................................................................1 1 Introduction ................................................................................................................1 1.1 Overview of Industrial Smart Sensors ..................................................................2 1.1.1 Brief Review of Industrial Sensors ...........................................................2 1.1.2 Composition of Smart Transmitter ............................................................4 1.2 Shortcomings of Existing Smart Sensors and Potential Solutions .........................6 1.2.1 Shortcomings of Existing Smart Transmitters ...........................................6 1.2.2 A New Generation of Smart Sensors.........................................................7 1.2.3 Potential Solutions through Integrating Data Analysis ..............................7 1.3 Research Objectives, Methodologies, and Scope ..................................................9 1.3.1 Objectives ................................................................................................9 1.3.2 Methodologies ..........................................................................................9 1.3.3 Scope ..................................................................................................... 10 1.4 Contributions of the Thesis ................................................................................ 11 1.5 Organization of the Thesis ................................................................................. 11 Chapter 2 ....................................................................................................................... 13 2 Literature Review ..................................................................................................... 13 vi 2.1 Review of Existing Smart Sensors ...................................................................... 13 2.2 Existing Fault Detection Techniques .................................................................. 15 2.2.1 Classification of Fault Detection Methods .............................................. 16 2.2.2 Residual Generation by Model-based Methods ....................................... 18 2.2.3 Residual Evaluation for Fault Detection.................................................. 20 2.3 Existing Techniques for Prediction of System Responses ................................... 21 2.3.1 Models with