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APMonitor Release Notes

Future Roadmap

Additional functionality is continually added to the APMonitor software. Below is a roadmap on product development. Requests for additional features can be discussed on the user's group forum and is regularly solicited from customers.

Development Priorities

  • Parallel support for larger scale optimization problems
  • Linux server development in addition to the Windows server operating support
  • Collaborative project features that allow multiple simultaneous developers
  • Improved Python and MATLAB interface support
  • Incorporation of additional solvers, including those with mixed-integer capabilities

Version Release Notes

Version 0.5.7 - 9 Apr 2012

  • New imode option (imode=7) for sequential simulation. This implements something similar to MATLAB’s ode15s or DASPK with forward time stepping.
  • Initial conditions and guess values can come from the CSV data file. APM will use them when NLC.COLDSTART=1 (on). Coldstart also turns off the MVs for one cycle to make the problem easier to solve.
  • Testing some new Mixed-Integer code. A prototype version is available at the Mathworks File Exchange web-site.

Version 0.5.6 - 15 Feb 2012

  • More improvements to the APM Python and APM MATLAB interfaces
    • Access solution results directly into python scripts
    • Added trending capability with Python's Numpy and Matplotlib
  • Tested parallel processing with APM MATLAB
  • Access database variables into the APM MATLAB or APM Python script such as objective function values
  • Retrieve server results without dependency of NumPy (Python version)

Version 0.5.5 - 9 Dec 2012

  • Improvements to the Python and MATLAB interfaces
    • Python and MATLAB interfaces now support multiple simultaneous applications
    • Separate simultaneous applications are maintained with separate names, such as MHE and NLC, that exchange information between estimation and control
    • Model files and CSV data files are now sent to the server with one command instead of line-by-line as in v0.5.4, greatly improving the load speed
  • Fixed problem with a controller trajectory formulation
    • Controller did not implement dead-band control correctly, leading to slower than expected controller response
  • Added new reference trajectory formulation for derivative-based control
  • More operating system support
    • Executable Tested on 32 and 64 bit Windows XP, Windows 7
    • Web interface tested for MacOS
  • Time shift now allows any number of time horizon steps instead of only 1 or 0 (off).

Version 0.5.4 - 15 Nov 2011

  • New MATLAB and Python interfaces
  • Added new CONSTANTS classification
    • Can now specify constants in a vector index
    • Added multidimensional array support
  • Second derivative information fixed for MHE L2-norm mode for data reconciliation
    • Error was causing incorrect sparsity and Hessian information that was accessed by the IPOPT solver

Version 0.5.3 - 15 Sept 2011

  • Added support for APOPT and BPOPT solvers
  • Updated IPOPT solver to v.3.9.1
  • Updated web-interface trends to Flash v10 from v6.