INVITED SPEAKER SEMINAR - Advanced Control Strategies and Implementations for Petrochemical Plants and Unmanned Vehicles

Date: Thursday, June 26, 2025, from 11:00 a.m.  

Location: EV 2.184

Abstract

Advanced control strategies are now a well-established discipline for designing controllers in different engineering areas. Here, Model Predictive Control (MPC) is a robust technique that can effectively regulate complex dynamic systems. It has been used in oil refinery plants since the 1980s. Nowadays, due to its inherent ability to take into account constraints and handle multi-input multi-output variables, MPC structures are preferred to improve control performance in unmanned vehicles (UVs). However, its real-time application has its challenges, mainly due to the large computational overhead, the complexity of its software implementation, and the need of an accurate model of the process. Hence, considering that the majority of the total energy consumption in the world consists of fossil fuels and the use of UVs has notably increased, the purpose of this research seminar is to present:

1) how complete petrochemical plants in Mexico are modeled and simulated using Aspen HYSYS® in a dynamic environment for future MPC implementation,

2) how MPC architectures have been proposed and implemented in UVs such as boats and quadrotors, to overcome disturbances with a low computational demand.

A space dedicated to discussions among students, researchers, and professors involved in advanced control strategies for petrochemical processes and autonomous vehicles.

Biography

Dr. CARLOS SOTELO received his B.S. in Mechatronics Engineering and his M.S. degree in Automation and Control Engineering, the two degrees from Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus Monterrey, México in 2010 and 2015 respectively. Furthermore, he has received his M.S. degree in Systems, Control and I&T from the Université Joseph Fourier of Grenoble, France in 2014. Finally, in 2019, he received his PhD degree after several publications, he is currently ascribed in the Mobility research group at Tecnológico de Monterrey in Monterrey City, member of the Mexican National Research System SNI-I. His main research interests are nonlinear control, mechatronics, parametric identification and predictive control of refinery processes and autonomous vehicles.

Dr. DAVID SOTELO received his B.S. in Mechatronics Engineering and his M.S. degree in Automation and Control Engineering from Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus Monterrey, México in 2010 and 2015 respectively. Moreover, in 2014 he has received his M.S. degree in Systems, Control and I&T from the Université Joseph Fourier of Grenoble, France. In 2019, he received his PhD degree with several publications. Nowadays, he is ascribed in the Mobility research group at Tecnológico de Monterrey in Monterrey City, member of the Mexican National Research System SNI-I. His main research interests are optimal and robust control, process identification and design of control structures in crude oil distillation columns and autonomous vehicles.