Soft Sensors for Monitoring and Control of Industrial Processes

Luigi Fortuna has been Professor of System Theory at the University of Catania since 1994. He has published more than 280 technical papers and is co-author of seven books including, for Springer, Soft Computing (1-85233-308-1, 2001, 280 pp, SC) and Microelectronics and Microsystems (1-85233-499-1, 2001, 222 pp, HC). He holds several USA patents. His scientific interests include automatic control, nonlinear science and complexity, chaos, cellular neural networks with applications in bioengineering. He has been an IEEE Fellow since 2000. Salvatore Graziani received a M.S. degree in electronic engineering and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering, both from the Universita degli Studi di Catania, Italy, in 1990 and 1994, respectively. In 1990 he joined the Dipartimento di Ingegneria Elettrica, Elettrica e dei Sistemi, Universita di Catania, where he is an Associate Professor of Electric and Electronic Measurement and Instrumentation. His primary research interests lie in the field of sensors and actuators, signal processing, multisensor data fusion, neural networks, and smart sensors. He has co-authored several scientific papers and one book. Maria Gabriella Xibilia holds an M.S. degree in electronic engineering and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering, both from the Universita degli Studi di Catania, Italy, in 1991 and 1995, respectively. In 1998 she joined the Dipartimento di Matematica of the Universita degli Studi di Messina, where she is an Assistant Professor of Automatic Control. Her primary research interests lie in the field of process control, system identification, soft computing and fault detection. She has coauthored several scientific papers and three books.

From the reviews: "The monograph is devoted to design procedure of soft sensors and their applications for solving some industrial problems. ... The monograph highlights the importance of using knowledge from industrial experts and from the existing industrial process literature. It is full of valuable information about the veracity of different methods. The monograph will be appreciated by the industrial control engineer for its practical insights and by the academic staff for its case-study applications."(Tadeusz Kaczorek, Zentralblatt MATH, Vol. 1136 (14), 2008)

• Soft Sensors in Industrial Applications.- Virtual Instruments and Soft Sensors.- Soft Sensor Design.- Selecting Data from Plant Database.- Choice of the Model Structure.- Model Validation.- Strategies to Improve Soft Sensor Performance.- Adapting Soft Sensors to Applications.- Fault Detection, Sensor Validation and Diagnosis.