Rapid process synthesis supported by a unified modular software framework

Abstract

Although known to be very powerful, the widespread application of model‐based techniques is still significantly hampered in the area of bio‐processes. Reasons for this situation can be found along the whole chain to set up and implement such approaches. In a time‐consuming step, models are typically hand‐crafted. Whether alternatives of better models exist to actually fulfill the final goals is undocumented, most often even unknown. In a next step, model‐based process control methods are hand‐coded in an error‐prone procedure. For many of these methods given in the literature, only simulation studies are shown, leaving the interested reader with the unanswered question whether the implementation of a specific method in a real process is viable. As the potentially time‐consuming implementation of such a method presents a risk for a rapid process development, promising candidates may be overlooked. To remediate this unsatisfactory situation, a combination of theoretical methods and information technology is proposed here. By an exemplarily realized software tool, it is shown how such an environment helps to promote model‐based optimization, supervision, and control of bio‐processes and allows for an inexpensive test of new ideas as well in real‐life experiments. The contribution concentrates on an overview of a possible software architecture with respect to necessary methods and a meaningful information strategy, highlighting some of the more crucial building blocks. Experimental results exploiting parts of the proposed methods are given for a yeast strain synthesizing a product of industrial interest.