Controls & Optimization - Technologies to help products be more "Green"

Products in markets such as aviation, power generation, and transportation, to name a few, are continually being challenged to deliver increased performance with improved reliability and lower life cycle cost. In the area of life cycle cost, a key product differentiator is energy efficiency, which has become a critical factor due to raising energy costs. The desired approach to improving efficiency of products is through the design phase. However, design entitlement is rarely achieved due to operational conservatism, which is required to address issues such as uncertainties in system dynamics, product variation, and product degradation. At General Electric, advanced control technologies are playing a prominent role in achieving design entitlement associated with energy efficiency. In addition, the application of control technologies is creating new design and product opportunities in the context of energy efficiency. In this seminar, researchers from the Automation & Controls Laboratory of GE Global Research will discuss a wide range of applications where controls and optimization technologies have allowed products to reduce their energy usage, thereby, allowing them to be more "green". Examples of applications include model-predictive control for combined cycle power plants, optimal trajectory generation and closed loop train control, and integration of design and control for wind turbines. For each application, the end-customer & market drivers, the control technology development, and results from field implementation will be presented.