Nonlinear adaptive control for continuous stirred tank reactor

Abstract

A continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR) is a type of reactors used commonly in industrial processing. It has inherently nonlinear and complex dynamic behavior and therefore it is difficult to handle with a linear controller. In this research, a nonlinear adaptive control approach is developed based on generic model control (GMC) with online adaptation of its tuning parameters. An extended Kalman filter has been incorporated to the control approach in order to determine unknown/uncertain parameters. The performance of the designed controller has been evaluated in two cases: disturbance changes and plant/model mismatches. The simulation results have shown that the nonlinear adaptive control provides good control performance in both cases. Moreover, this controller is found to be better than the GMC and conventional Proportional Integral Derivative (PID) controller in all cases.