Process monitoring using kernel density estimation and Bayesian networking with an industrial case study

Principal component analysis has been widely used in the process industries for the purpose of monitoring abnormal behaviour. The process of reducing dimension is obtained through PCA, while T-tests are used to test for abnormality. Some of the main contributions to the success of PCA is its ability to not only detect problems, but to also give some indication as to where these problems are located. However, PCA and the T-test make use of Gaussian assumptions which may not be suitable in process fault detection. A previous modification of this method is the use of independent component analysis (ICA) for dimension reduction combined with kernel density estimation for detecting abnormality; like PCA, this method points out location of the problems based on linear data-driven methods, but without the Gaussian assumptions. Both ICA and PCA, however, suffer from challenges in interpreting results, which can make it difficult to quickly act once a fault has been detected online. This paper proposes the use of Bayesian networks for dimension reduction which allows the use of process knowledge enabling more intelligent dimension reduction and easier interpretation of results. The dimension reduction technique is combined with multivariate kernel density estimation, making this technique effective for non-linear relationships with non-Gaussian variables. The performance of PCA, ICA and Bayesian networks are compared on data from an industrial scale plant.