OPTEC - K.U.Leuven Center of Excellence: Optimization in Engineering

21st Simon Stevin Lecture on Optimization in Engineering, and 3rd Chemical Engineering Department Lecture (International Year of Chemistry)

"Online Optimization of Biochemical Processes"

Michel Perrier
Department of Chemical Engineering at Polytechnique Montréal



flyer, poster

Abstract

Optimization methods have been widely used in biology related fields with great success for example in systems biology, metabolic engineering, biochemical engineering amongst others. Most of the work has been focused on developing mathematical models trying to describe the steady-state and dynamical behaviour obtained from the observation of living organisms at the scale of single cell up to biochemical reactors. Optimization is then performed typically offline to obtain a better understanding of the organism under study from a design or operational standpoint.  Comparatively, fewer studies have been performed with the objective of optimizing a specified performance index on-line.

 

There are many problems specifically associated with online optimization compared to off-line. Model mismatch, model uncertainty, unmeasured disturbances have to be taken into account to make sure to optimize the actual system and not the model. The number of degrees of freedom is also much lower. Methods on how to address these problems will be given by studying several applications to biochemical systems with a focus on bioreactors. Perspectives for future research will be outlined.

Biographical Information

Prof. Michel Perrier is presently Head of the Department of Chemical Engineering at Polytechnique Montréal since Dec. 2009. He obtained his Ph.D. from McGill University. Before joining Polytechnique  as a professor in 1993, he worked in industry as a control engineer for a period of seven years at Shell Canada, the Pulp and Paper Research Institute of Canada and the Biotechnology Research Institute in Montréal. He has been a visiting professor at the Centre for Integrated Dynamics and Control in the department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Newcastle in Australia in 2001, at the Centre for Systems Engineering and Applied Mechanics at the Université Catholique de Louvain in Belgium in 2002, and at University Polytechnic of Catalunya in Spain in 2008-2009. His research interests are in the field of dynamics, control and optimization of biotechnological processes. He has been vice-chair and then chair of the technical committee on Biosystems and Bioprocesses of the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) from 2001 to 2007. In 2008, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Faculté Polytechnique de Mons in Belgium and in 2009 the D.G. Fisher Award from the Systems and Control Division of the Canadian Society for Chemical Engineering. In June 2010, he was inducted Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering.

About the Lecture Series:

The "Simon Stevin Lecture Series on Optimization in Engineering" is set up in order to promote optimization in engineering. For this aim, every quarter of the year an outstanding international scholar is invited to report on latest progress in the development of optimization algorithms and their applications in engineering.
Simon Stevin (1548-1620) was a Flemish mathematician and engineer. Among other, he helped to advance the use of decimal fractions, was the first to explain the tides by the attraction of the moon, and discovered the hydrostatic paradox. He made numerous inventions, among them a wind propelled carriage with sails, the "land yacht", which once impressed Prince Maurice of Orange as it moved faster than horses, in around 1600 on the beach between Scheveningen and Petten. Simon Stevin was fond of promoting the use of science in daily life and in craftmanship, and translated various mathematical terms into dutch. Among other, he introduced the dutch word for mathematics, "wiskunde".