Advanced Control Foundation

Tools, Techniques and Applications

The Book

Meet The Authors

Terrence L. “Terry” Blevins

Terrence L. “Terry” Blevins has been actively involved in the application and design of process control systems throughout his career. For more than 15 years, he worked as a systems engineer and group manager in the design and startup of advanced control solutions for the pulp and paper industry. Terry was instrumental in the establishment of Emerson Process Management’s Advanced Control Program. From 1998-2005 Terry was the team lead for the development of DeltaV advanced control products. He is the Fieldbus Foundation team lead for the development and maintenance of the Function Block Specification and editor of the SIS Architecture and Model Specifications. In this capacity, Terry is involved in the adoption of Fieldbus Foundation function block work by international standards. Terry is the US expert to the IEC SC65E WG7 function block committee that is responsible for the IEC 61804 function block standards. He is a voting member and chairman of ISA SP104-EDDL (Electronic Device Description Language) committee and is the technical advisor to the United States Technical Advisory Group (USTAG) for the IEC65E subcommittee. He is also a member of the USNC TAG (IEC/SC65 and IEC/TC65).

Terry authored “An Overview of the ISA/IEC Fieldbus,” Section 11, Standards Overview, Fifth Edition of the Process/Industrial Instruments and Controls Handbook and coauthored four sections in the Fourth Edition of the Instrumentation Engineer’s Handbook, Process Control and Optimization. He coauthored the ISA bestselling books Advanced Control Unleashed and Control Loop Foundation. He has over 45 patents and has written over 70 papers on process control system design and applications. Terry received a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Louisville in 1971 and a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University in 1973. In 2004, he was inducted into Control Magazine’s Process Automation Hall of Fame. Presently, Terry is a principal technologist in the future architecture team of DeltaV Product Engineering at Emerson Process Management.

Willy Wojsznis

Willy Wojsznis has been involved in the development of advanced control products over the last twenty years focusing on model predictive control, data analytics, and auto tuning. Over the previous nearly 25-years of his career he developed computer control systems and applications in the cement, steel, mining, and paper industries. His professional work resulted in a number of successful and innovative advanced control products, over thirty patents and over forty technical papers.

He received a control engineering degree (EE) from Kiev Technical University in 1964, an M.S. in Applied Mathematics from Wroclaw University in 1972, and a Ph.D. from Warsaw University of Technology in 1973.

He coauthored the ISA bestselling book Advanced Control Unleashed. In 2010, he was inducted into Control Magazine’s Process Automation Hall of Fame.

Presently, Willy is part of the DeltaV future architecture team. He conducts applied research in the areas of optimization, adaptive control, data analytics, and model predictive control.

Mark Nixon

Mark Nixon has been involved in the design and development of control systems throughout his career. Mark started his career as a systems engineer working on projects in oil and gas, refining, chemicals, and pulp and paper. He moved from Canada to Austin, TX in 1988 where he has held a variety of positions in both research and development. From 1995 to 2005 Mark was lead architect for DeltaV. In 2006 he joined the wireless team, taking a very active role in the development of the WirelessHART specifications and the development of the IEC 62591 standardization.

Mark’s current research includes control using WirelessHART devices, data analytics, wireless technology in the process industry, web based user interfaces, operator interfaces, and advanced graphics. He is currently active in the Center for Operator Performance (http://www.operatorperformance.org), WirelessHART, S88, Foundation Fieldbus standards (http://www.fieldbus.org/), and ISA101. He has written numerous papers and currently holds over 150 patents. He coauthored WirelessHART: Real-Time Mesh Network for Industrial Automation and has made contributions to the Industrial Instruments and Controls Handbook and Modern Measurement and Final Element Essentials for the Process Industry. He coauthored the ISA bestselling book Control Loop Foundation. In 2012, he was inducted into Control Magazine’s Process Automation Hall of Fame. Mark received his Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Waterloo in 1982.