23 European Symposium on Computer Aided Process Engineering
The direct compaction continuous pharmaceutical tablet manufacturing process considered in this study is highly interactive and has time delays for several process variables due to sensor placements, that indicate that a simple feedback regulatory control system (e.g. PI(D)) by itself may not be sufficient to achieve the tight process control as imposed by regulatory authorities. This process comprises of coupled dynamics involving slow and fast responses indicating the requirement of a hybrid control scheme such as an advanced hybrid MPC-PID control scheme. In this article, an efficient plant-wide hybrid MPC-PID control strategy for an integrated continuous pharmaceutical tablet manufacturing process via direct compaction has been designed in silico. The designed hybrid control system has been implemented in a first principle model-based flowsheet that was simulated in gPROMS (PSE). Results demonstrated enhanced performance of critical quality attributes (CQAs) under the hybrid control scheme compared to only PID or MPC control schemes thus illustrating the potential of hybrid control scheme in improving pharmaceutical manufacturing operations. A systematic methodology for design and implementation of hybrid MPC-PID control system has been also developed that can be employed for other processes.