Here is the title and abstract of the colloquium at kjemiteknikk:
Title: Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) in a control engineering perspective
Abstract: Life cycle analysis, needs analysis and requirement definition
are among the cornerstones for system design and product development. A
brief survey will be given. Life Cycle Assessment includes decisions for
future actions to be taken to improve system performance, "Sustainability"
is a derivative of that. LCA is therefore involved in predictive decision
making, similar to MPC. The objective function for the decisions is related
to the system's (or product's) use of resources and its environmental loads
and consequences. The key elements in LCA, when properly used, are models
for system behavior, including constraints and effects from manipulation of
degrees of freedom, models for system interaction with the environment, such
as utilization of resources and emission of wastes, models for future
scenarios of disturbances, events and time of events, etc., all considered
in a life cycle for economics, materials, energy, human factors and society,
etc. This is all very similar to cybernetics and familiar and to control
engineers, a field completely ignored in the "LCA-world". The models used
there are usually static material and energy balances, while the
accumulation dynamics require dynamic models. Models for system behavior
are often based on historical data for existing systems or products,
ignoring the dynamics of technology development.
The essence of the talk will be to point out some of the characteristics of
LCA and its clear relationship to cybernetics and optimal predictive
control. The fact that most data and assumptions are very uncertain require
probabilistic and possibilistic analyses to be made.
O.A. Asbjornsen