|
Charles R. Cutler, Ph. D.
Charles holds a BS degree in Chemical Engineering from Lamar
University and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of
Houston. He worked for Shell Oil Company for 23 years in a variety of
assignments in refineries, chemical plants, research, and central
engineering. The thread of continuity through these assignments was a
close association with computer control and real time optimization. The
last four years with Shell, he was the senior engineering manager responsible
for the instrumentation, computer control, and real time optimization systems in
Shell USA. In 1984, Charles founded the Dynamic Matrix Control Corporation
(DMCC) and was the CEO and president for 12 years until it was sold to Aspen
Technology in 1996. For the two years following the sell of DMCC to aspen,
he worked as an advisor to Aspen's senior management. He currently works
as an independent consultant.
|
 |
In the mid sixties, Charles was assigned to a Shell Oil research
project, which had as its goal, the real time optimization of a fluid catalytic
cracking unit. During the implementation phase of the optimization
solution it became apparent that the PID algorithm was not capable of obtaining
the full benefits of the optimization. A high percentage of the time the
optimization used its degrees of freedom to solve for an equal number of
physical constraints The PID algorithm was not effective in controlling
the highly interactive system concurrently at a large number of
constraints. During the late sixties and early seventies as a graduate
student, Charlie developed the Dynamic Matrix Control (DMC) algorithm to solve
the constrained multivariable control problem. Returning to work for
Shell, he and others in Shell applied the DMC controller for 11 years until he
started DMCC.
Charles and his associates at DMCC developed two software
packages, one for constrained multivariable control and the other for real time
optimization. The control software permitted an engineer to identify the
process of dynamics of a system from plant measurements. With the dynamic
models of the process known, the software created the control program. It
was the first software commercially available that permitted the engineer to use
the open equation modeling concept when building the mathematical models of a
process unit. These two software packages proved very successful and
became the standard for the process industries.