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*Metacontrol*  Methodology Overview
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The "top-down" part of the self-optimizing control structure selection 
methodology developed  by Skogestad (:cite:`skoge00`) has the following main steps:

#.  Identify the relevant process variables: Manipulated 
    variables, disturbances, and potential candidate controlled variables 
    (process measurements), and perform a Degree of Freedom (DOF) analysis 
    taking into account both steady and dynamic states of the process. 
#.  Define optimal operation: Formulate the problem with objective 
    function and constraints to be used in order to seek an optimal operating point.
#.  (Mathematically) Model the (industrial) process. *Metacontrol* is currently compatible
    with Aspen Plus.
#.  Optimize the process model as formulated in step 2.
#.  Implement the active constraints found in the previous step - 
    "active constraint control" (:cite:`skoge00`)
#.  Evaluate the loss resulting from a constant setpoint policy 
    (:cite:`halvorsen03`) for each possible control configuration for the 
    remaining (unconstrained) degrees of freedom. This is done in *Metacontrol* using, 
    e.g., local (linear) methods (:cite:`halvorsen03,hori05,hori08,alstad09`),  
    where a reduced-space (unconstrained) problem is required to obtain  
    gradients with respect to candidate controlled variables and disturbances, 
    and the Hessian of the objective function evaluated at the optimal 
    point found in step 4. As stated before in the introduction, *Metacontrol* uses
    Kriging predictors to evaluate gradient and hessian matrices. 
    Note that the use of local methods requires the specification of disturbance 
    magnitudes and measurement errors associated with each candidate controlled
    variable of step 1.



The basic structure of *Metacontrol* showing the two modes
of operation is depicted in Figure below. Mode 1 is the 
complete implementation of steps 1 through 6 of the SOC procedure, where a 
first metamodel of the process is generated to evaluate the optimal operating 
point with all degrees of freedom available, while mode 2 is a shortcut taken 
when the optimal steady-state is known. In both cases, an extra metamodel is 
produced as the reduced space model using the remaining unconstrained degrees 
of freedom.



.. figure:: ../images/metacontrol-workflow.svg
   :align: center

   Basic flowchart of the Metacontrol workflow.


The graphical user interface (GUI) of *Metacontrol* is a paradigm of the steps 
that are needed
to perform the SOC analysis using metamodels, proposed by :cite:`alves2018`. The user will simply navigate between easy-to-use sequential tabs,
providing information for the problem that he wants to study, and the results will become 
available in real-time. Over the next session, each tab of *Metacontrol* will be discussed in
detail, in order to teach you how to use it!