The Baroreceptor Reflex: A Biological Control System with Applications in Chemical Process Control

Abstract

Many industrial chemical processes are difficult to control effectively using existing techniques because they are complex, interconnected, nonlinear systems which lack reliable on-line measurements of key process variables. Due to increasingly stringent demands on product quality, energy utilization, and environmental responsibility, more effective control strategies are needed for these processes. By contrast, extremely complex biological systems routinely operate under more stringent requirements on product quality and failure tolerance as a result of the robust, high performance computation and control functions provided by the brain. Thus, studying and understanding these biological control systems, and ultimately reverse engineering their functions, should provide ample alternative techniques for developing effective control systems for chemical processes. The objective of the paper is to present one such biological control system - the baroreceptor reflex, which provides short-term regulation of arterial blood pressure - and identify potential applications in chemical process control. Novel process monitoring, modeling, and control strategies which are currently being developed by reverse engineering the architectural and computational properties of this reflex are discussed. Preliminary results on techniques for sensor fusion based control, nonlinear modeling, and control of multiple-input, single-output systems which have been abstracted from the reflex are also presented