Patent Document ID: 20170192397
Application ID: 14984786
Patent Flag: 0

Claim One:
1. A system, comprising: one or more sensors providing data representing a current state of each of a plurality of process units within a continuous process, said process units meeting one or more demands of the continuous process; and a control system receiving the current state data and generating an operating state of the continuous process based thereon, the control system comprising a processor executing computer-executable components, the components comprising: a plurality of model components implementing at least one first-principle equation, wherein the first-principle equation represents at least one of the process units, and wherein one or more of the plurality of model components comprise a group; a plurality of switch components each comprising a corresponding one of the plurality of model components and each implementing a mixed integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) behavior of the corresponding model component; a MINLP solver component configured to specify a switching state from a plurality of switching states, the switching states each corresponding to an operational status of the plurality of model components; and an oracle component configured to provide an infeasibility indication to the MINLP solver component as a function of the demands for indicating whether the specified switching state is infeasible.