ABSTRACT

On-line monitoring of particle shape and size distribution is a challenge frequently faced by the traditional pharmaceuticals and fine chemicals industries. The control of particulate processes is particularly compounded by the lack of process understanding and in-situ sensors. With regulatory initiatives such as the US Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Process Analytical Technology (PAT) program for the pharmaceutical industry and the ongoing improvement in real-time imaging hardware (exemplified by Focused Beam Reflectance Measurement, FBRM and Particle Vision and Measurement, PVM, both from Lasentec), there is a growing interest to develop control technologies using advanced imaging sensors.In this work, I will describe some of our research in image analysis targeted at real-time control of crystallization processes.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Rajagopalan Srinivasan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at the National University of Singapore. He is concurrently a Principal Scientist at the Institute of Chemical & Engineering Sciences, where he leads the Process Systems & Control team. Raj received his B.Tech from IIT Madras in 1993 and his PhD from Purdue University in 1998, both in Chemical Engineering. He worked as a research associate in Honeywell Technology Center, Minneapolis, before joining NUS. Raj's research program is targeted towards developing artificial intelligence and systems engineering approaches for process design, control and supervision as well as enterprise optimization.