Process control in a high-noise environment using a limited number of measurements

In this paper, we develop a hybrid control algorithm that produces control values for processes where only a limited number of function evaluations are available for the control law generation. This situation arises, for example, in stencil printing processes in printed circuit board manufacturing, where the cost associated with multiple function evaluations is prohibitive: The proposed control algorithm is given by a modified version of a constrained conjugated-gradient method, transitioned into a windowed-smoothed block-form of the least-squares affine estimator.