QUICK FACTS
Pegasus Technologies, Inc. is using PV-WAVE as its data visualization engine for its product NeuWAVE. NeuWave is a point-and-click environment for visualizing energy plant data in several different modes. NeuWAVE is included with the NeuSIGHT Optimization Suite software. The flexibility of PV-WAVE allows for the customization of additional displays improving the product.

THE PROBLEM
As Americans demand ever-growing access to electricity at affordable prices, power utility companies everywhere are searching for ways to increase their operational efficiency and narrowing profit margins. Perhaps the most obvious area for productivity improvements is better usage of the equipment that runs power plants and generates electricity. For example, utility power generation boilers exist in a dynamic arena where environmental, operational and economic conditions are in a constant state-of-flux. The process variables that determine how boilers do their job are constantly changing, as the plant's overall control system and human operators strive to maintain balance in the boiler performance.

To achieve the optimal process model -- a roadmap that describes how the boiler would best perform -- numerous data inputs (100 to 500) must be managed, increasing the overall complexity of the process with each additional input. Optimization must also occur given the physical and operational constraints of the operating environment, thereby improving performance without sacrificing "good" or safe boiler operation.

Mentor, Ohio-based Pegasus Technologies, Inc., a 30-person subsidiary of KFx Inc., has developed a solution to meet the challenge of boiler efficiency. Pegasus is an industry leader in neural network-based information technology applications for the power generation market. The company's flagship product is its combustion optimization system, the NeuSIGHT Optimization Suite (NeuSIGHT OS). First released in December 2000 and applied specifically to the electric power generation industry, NeuSIGHT OS is the market's first online, real-time, closed-loop process optimization solution. By employing proven neural network technology for optimization and self-tuning, the combustion optimizer continuously adjusts boiler operation to simultaneously provide improved efficiency and environmental performance. The product monitors and measures up to 1,500 input variables, models current operations, and then makes the adjustments necessary to achieve an ideal balance between efficiency and performance.

With a rapid return-on-investment and multiple benefits, the NeuSIGHT Optimization Suite provides utility companies with a cost-effective and sensible first step toward increasing profitability, competitiveness and plant safety.

Only NeuSIGHT OS delivers the performance necessary to optimize these complex processes with one robust, self-tuning model. The Pegasus solution eliminates the inefficiencies associated with integrating multiple applications and completely avoids the expensive and time-consuming periodic re-tuning required by competitive products. Through its unmatched power and flexibility, NeuSIGHT OS has continuously asserted its position as the market leader, establishing a history of industry firsts.

At the core of the NeuSIGHT Optimization Suite is an exclusive and patented neural network, which uses one or more layers of hidden "nodes" (mathematical processors) to relate input information to target goals in an empirical fashion. The system measures up to 1,500 input variables, typically modeling the combustion process with 120 of those variables and adjusting rapidly to fluctuations in fuel quality, equipment performance, and environmental conditions.

The neural network's advantage lies in its use of sophisticated genetic algorithms, which provide an extremely fast and efficient method for exploring large multi-dimensional information sources and for locating the optimum solution. The system searches the input space for areas of "good" results, subsequently expanding the search to other areas. In seconds, the search span decreases and the system converges on the optimal solution.

NeuSIGHT OS is sensitive enough to respond to small system changes, even those that may appear to operators to be constant boiler conditions. By taking advantage of the neural network's ability to simultaneously evaluate multiple linear and non-linear variables, the optimizer also performs "what-if" calculations to determine the best combination of controlled inputs and to decide what adjustments the boiler operating equipment needs to achieve target goals.

Once the core model is established, the optimizer responds to variations in boiler performance, instrumentation calibration and fuel changes by continuously re-tuning the core model and using the updated model to automatically change setpoints and bias settings for supervisory control. This "self-tuning" capability, which is unique to the NeuSIGHT Optimization Suite, allows the system to far outperform competitive products, which require periodic re-tuning at the expense of valuable time and significant additional money.

The Pegasus system has the capability to take a large number of inputs into the system and run multiple; complex processes simultaneously, selecting important inputs for model building and directly adjusting multiple controllable variables. NeuSIGHT OS is installed as a complete solution, with hardware and software included for seamless integration with each customer site's specific control system and legacy information technology environment.

THE SOLUTION
Of key importance to NeuSIGHT OS users is the ability to apply advanced data visualization and analysis techniques to the input data, allowing them to verify models and present clear interrelationships of current operating conditions. According to Ken Zakrajsek, a systems administrator at Pegasus, users want to explore potential solutions in a visual display to accurately and easily assess relationships between variables.

As such, software engineer Dave Klender and his colleagues in Pegasus's research & development department created a sub-product called NeuWAVE. Using PV-WAVE as its data visualization engine, NeuWAVE is a point-and-click environment for visualizing actual plant data in several different modes, including 3D, 4D, and time-series and correlation plots. NeuWAVE is included with the NeuSIGHT Optimization Suite software. Although NeuWAVE has several pre-existing display formats, the flexible PV-WAVE engine allows for the customization of additional displays, depending on individual site requirements.

According to Klender, PV-WAVE was chosen as NeuWAVE's data visualization engine for three primary reasons. "First, PV-WAVE has very clear, detailed and multiple plotting options, which was a requirement for any visualization technology that we considered as the embedded engine of NeuWAVE," he said. "Second, PV-WAVE's ability to handle large amounts of data is especially important, considering the huge datasets associated with typical boiler operations. And lastly, PV-WAVE's function library allowed us to easily customize it to our exact specifications."

PV-WAVE, the flagship product from Visual Numerics, is an open environment for developing and deploying Visual Data Analysis (VDA) applications that help customers turn raw data into meaningful information. These VDA applications let users visualize and manipulate complex or extremely large data sets to detect and display patterns, trends, anomalies, and other vital information. PV-WAVE includes hundreds of mathematical and statistical analysis routines from Visual Numerics' IMSL Numerical Libraries, as well as image processing, signal processing, mapping, and general data manipulation features.

Engineers, scientists, business analysts, and software developers access this robust and extensive set of functions through an array-oriented programming language. PV-WAVE also includes advanced graphical user interface development tools that facilitate the construction of intuitive front-ends, making the product's functionality easily accessible to others in an organization.

RETURN ON INVESTMENT
At the main office in Mentor, Pegasus personnel share licenses of PV-WAVE, which they run on Solaris-based workstations from Sun Microsystems. In addition, each installation of NeuSIGHT OS includes a PV-WAVE run-time license. Prior to PV-WAVE, then-available computer-based charting software was being used, but it became too limiting as the NeuSIGHT Optimization Suite evolved in sophistication and complexity. "PV-WAVE is powerful and flexible, just like our NeuSIGHT Optimization Suite. It was important to find a product that could grow with us," Zakrajsek said.

"Visual Numerics provides an essential product for organizations with robust data visualization needs," Klender concluded. "Couple that with a product support group that is always knowledgeable and diligent in answering my questions, and you've got a very valuable vendor-partner."

WORLD CLASS PRODUCTS, SERVICES, AND SUPPORT
Visual Numerics has provided technical software solutions for numerical analysis and visualization for over 30 years. The company's software products help users understand complex data from a variety of sources and build business-critical applications. Visual Numerics offers two product lines: the IMSL® Numerical Libraries for powerful mathematical and statistical analysis and the PV-WAVE® visual data analysis development environment. Visual Numerics also offers customized consulting services for applications that involve mathematical, statistical, or visual data analysis to meet today’s business analytical needs.