Accurate soft sensing modeling of complex industrial processes
can provide operation guidance for improving the product quality.
However, most modeling methods cannot mine the process data sufficiently,
which leads to low prediction accuracy and generalization performance.
Therefore, a novel soft sensing method based on dilated convolution
neural network (DCNN) combining data fusion and correlation analysis
is proposed. The fused data can be obtained by the sliding window
approach, with window sizes of 1 day, to eliminate noise caused by
uncertain working conditions. Then, the correlation analysis method
is used to analyze the relevance of the fused data to reduce redundant
variables. Moreover, the processed variables and target values are
taken as inputs and outputs of the DCNN to build the soft sensing
model. Finally, the proposed method is applied in a polypropylene
production system to predict the melt index. Compared with the extreme
learning machine, the convolution neural network, the DCNN, the DCNN
based on data fusion, and the DCNN based on correlation analysis,
the proposed soft sensing method has achieved state-of-the-art prediction
accuracy and generalization ability, which can improve the production
efficiency.