Observer-based piecewise gain-scheduled H∞ control to nuclear steam generator water level

This paper is concerned with the problem of observer-based piecewise gain-scheduled H_∞ control for the water level control of a nuclear steam generator with a linear parameter-varying model. A novel design method for the gain-scheduled H_∞ controllers, which are automatically adjusted along the reactor power, is developed via static observer and dynamic observer approaches in terms of linear matrix inequality. The designed controllers can guarantee that the resulting closed-loop systems are stable and H_∞ performance index are no more than a certain upper bound in the each operating region. Finally, simulation results demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed approach.