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Fault detection, supervision and safety for technical processes
EngngApplic. Artif. lntell. Vol. 6, No. 5, pp. 485-488, 1993 Printed in Great Britain. All fights reserved
0952-1976/93 $6.00+0.110 Copyright ~ 1993 Pergamon Press Ltd
Book Reviews Fault Detection, Supervision and Safety for Technical that the topic being addressed has reached a mature Processes, IFAC Symposia Series, 192, No. 6, edited by stage. R. ISERMANN and B. F R E Y E R M U T H . Pergamon Press, Oxford (1992). 628pp., £103.00, ISBN 0-08041275-0. This is a collection of 92 papers, originally presented at the IFAC/IMACS symposium SAFEPROCESS'91 in Baden-Baden, Germany in September 1991. Three papers were presented as plenary papers while seven others were given as survey papers. Of the contributed papers, about two thirds have a primary focus on the methodological aspects whereas the remaining one third focus primarily on applications. The papers address a vide variety of problem areas such as Reliability, Safety Analysis, Fault Detection, Diagnosis and Maintenance. An equally wide variety of methodologies are represented as well; traditional identification and estimation techniques, various forms of pattern recognition, signed directed graph approaches, neural networks and more traditional rulebased expert systems. This diverse collection of papers have found their way into a single book because of the common theme; the reliable, safe operation of various forms of technical processes where there is a need for a high degree of availability. In a brief but elucidating introduction, the editors point out that this can best be accomplished by simultaneously taking account of aspects such as the design of the processes and surveillance methods, the interaction between operators and systems, and the maintenance procedures to be employed. Two of the plenary papers describe current practice in industries where safety and reliability have always been of prime concern: the airlines, addressed by D. Reichow, and the nucelar power industries, by W. Aleite and D. Wach. Both of these papers are well written and offer practical lessons. The final plenary paper, by J. Gertler, offers an overivew of the state of the art in analytical redundancy methods. Of the seven survey papers, two are analytically inclined. The first, by Lauber, is a well-written account which identifies six different types of errors and failures and discusses their relative importance. Of special interest is the treatment of the impact of software. The second, by Oberhoff and K0nig, offers a comprehensive and interesting descripton of safety management in chemcial plants. The authors draw heavily on their industrial experience and the paper clearly benefits from this. All but one of the remaining survey papers address various quantitative mathematical techniques. These papers are generally well written and reflect the fact 485
It is noteworthy that in spite of the fact that the editors emphasize that an interdisciplinary approach is requried, and in spite of the fact that large accidents are frequently attributed to human failure, there are no plenary or survey papers which focus solely on the role of the process operators. Further, even though a significant number of the contributed papers report on various techniques emerging from Artificial Intelligence, there is no survey paper putting these techniques into perspective. Neither is there any paper which offers a thorough comparison of the different types of techniques. This is understandable insofar as the application of AI techniques to industrial problems is a very immature field, and hence difficult to survey, but the book would have benefitted from the inclusion of one or two papers of this kind. As with most collections of papers presented at a symposium, the quality of the contributed papers is mixed. In this case, most are good, but some describe ideas which will probably go out of fashion in a couple of years. In summary, this collection of papers offers a reasonably accurate reflection of the state of the art in some of the areas relevant for the safe and reliable operation of technical processes. The strongest selling point is the comprehensive surveys of different quantitative mathematical approaches to fault detection. Another strong point is the fact that practising engineers will find several papers offering a useful analysis of the relative importance of different factors contributing to the safe and reliable operation of his or her process. The biggest omissions are the rudimentary coverage of the role of the human in the loop, and the lack of a comprehensive overview of how the different techniques compare and could be applied together. In spite of the above reservations, this book should be attractive to anyone who is actively engaged in the area of safe and reliable processes, or anyone who wants to learn more about the state of the art in that area. ERLING A. WOODS SINTEF The Foundation for Scientific and Industrial Research at the Norwegian Institute of Technology Trondheim
Artificial Intelligence Applications in Manufacturing, edited by A. (FAZEL) FAMILI, D A N A S. N A U and STEVEN H. KIM. AAAI Press/MIT Press, Menlo Park, CA (1992). 455 pp., £35.95, ISBN 0-262-56066-6.
0952-1976/93 $6.00+0.110 Copyright ~ 1993 Pergamon Press Ltd
Book Reviews Fault Detection, Supervision and Safety for Technical that the topic being addressed has reached a mature Processes, IFAC Symposia Series, 192, No. 6, edited by stage. R. ISERMANN and B. F R E Y E R M U T H . Pergamon Press, Oxford (1992). 628pp., £103.00, ISBN 0-08041275-0. This is a collection of 92 papers, originally presented at the IFAC/IMACS symposium SAFEPROCESS'91 in Baden-Baden, Germany in September 1991. Three papers were presented as plenary papers while seven others were given as survey papers. Of the contributed papers, about two thirds have a primary focus on the methodological aspects whereas the remaining one third focus primarily on applications. The papers address a vide variety of problem areas such as Reliability, Safety Analysis, Fault Detection, Diagnosis and Maintenance. An equally wide variety of methodologies are represented as well; traditional identification and estimation techniques, various forms of pattern recognition, signed directed graph approaches, neural networks and more traditional rulebased expert systems. This diverse collection of papers have found their way into a single book because of the common theme; the reliable, safe operation of various forms of technical processes where there is a need for a high degree of availability. In a brief but elucidating introduction, the editors point out that this can best be accomplished by simultaneously taking account of aspects such as the design of the processes and surveillance methods, the interaction between operators and systems, and the maintenance procedures to be employed. Two of the plenary papers describe current practice in industries where safety and reliability have always been of prime concern: the airlines, addressed by D. Reichow, and the nucelar power industries, by W. Aleite and D. Wach. Both of these papers are well written and offer practical lessons. The final plenary paper, by J. Gertler, offers an overivew of the state of the art in analytical redundancy methods. Of the seven survey papers, two are analytically inclined. The first, by Lauber, is a well-written account which identifies six different types of errors and failures and discusses their relative importance. Of special interest is the treatment of the impact of software. The second, by Oberhoff and K0nig, offers a comprehensive and interesting descripton of safety management in chemcial plants. The authors draw heavily on their industrial experience and the paper clearly benefits from this. All but one of the remaining survey papers address various quantitative mathematical techniques. These papers are generally well written and reflect the fact 485
It is noteworthy that in spite of the fact that the editors emphasize that an interdisciplinary approach is requried, and in spite of the fact that large accidents are frequently attributed to human failure, there are no plenary or survey papers which focus solely on the role of the process operators. Further, even though a significant number of the contributed papers report on various techniques emerging from Artificial Intelligence, there is no survey paper putting these techniques into perspective. Neither is there any paper which offers a thorough comparison of the different types of techniques. This is understandable insofar as the application of AI techniques to industrial problems is a very immature field, and hence difficult to survey, but the book would have benefitted from the inclusion of one or two papers of this kind. As with most collections of papers presented at a symposium, the quality of the contributed papers is mixed. In this case, most are good, but some describe ideas which will probably go out of fashion in a couple of years. In summary, this collection of papers offers a reasonably accurate reflection of the state of the art in some of the areas relevant for the safe and reliable operation of technical processes. The strongest selling point is the comprehensive surveys of different quantitative mathematical approaches to fault detection. Another strong point is the fact that practising engineers will find several papers offering a useful analysis of the relative importance of different factors contributing to the safe and reliable operation of his or her process. The biggest omissions are the rudimentary coverage of the role of the human in the loop, and the lack of a comprehensive overview of how the different techniques compare and could be applied together. In spite of the above reservations, this book should be attractive to anyone who is actively engaged in the area of safe and reliable processes, or anyone who wants to learn more about the state of the art in that area. ERLING A. WOODS SINTEF The Foundation for Scientific and Industrial Research at the Norwegian Institute of Technology Trondheim
Artificial Intelligence Applications in Manufacturing, edited by A. (FAZEL) FAMILI, D A N A S. N A U and STEVEN H. KIM. AAAI Press/MIT Press, Menlo Park, CA (1992). 455 pp., £35.95, ISBN 0-262-56066-6.