An Integrated Approach to Oscillation Propagation Identification and Source Locating in Process Multi-loop Systems

An integrated method for identifying the propagation of multi-loop process oscillations and their source location is proposed in this paper. Oscillatory process loop variables are automatically selected based on the component-related ratio index and a mixing matrix, both of which are obtained in data preprocessing by spectral independent component analysis. The complex causality among oscillatory process variables is then revealed by Granger causality test and is visualized in the form of causality diagram. The simplification of causal connectivity in the diagram is performed according to the understanding of process knowledge and the final simplest causality diagram, which represents the main oscillation propagation paths, is achieved by the automated cutting-off threshold search, with which less significant causality pathways are filtered out. The source of the oscillation disturbance can be identified intuitively through the final causality diagram. Both simulated and real plant data tests are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed method.