Research articleMultivariate fault isolation of batch processes via variable selection in partial least squares discriminant analysis

- A multivariate fault isolation method is proposed for batch process monitoring.
- The fault isolation problem is transformed into a variable selection problem.
- Sparse partial least square is adopted to solve the variable selection problem.
- Strong variable correlations can be handled.
- The relative importance of each process variable is revealed.

In recent years, multivariate statistical monitoring of batch processes has become a popular research topic, wherein multivariate fault isolation is an important step aiming at the identification of the faulty variables contributing most to the detected process abnormality. Although contribution plots have been commonly used in statistical fault isolation, such methods suffer from the smearing effect between correlated variables. In particular, in batch process monitoring, the high autocorrelations and cross-correlations that exist in variable trajectories make the smearing effect unavoidable. To address such a problem, a variable selection-based fault isolation method is proposed in this research, which transforms the fault isolation problem into a variable selection problem in partial least squares discriminant analysis and solves it by calculating a sparse partial least squares model. As different from the traditional methods, the proposed method emphasizes the relative importance of each process variable. Such information may help process engineers in conducting root-cause diagnosis.