Active disturbance rejection controller for a separation column

Isotope separation columns are known as complex, nonlinear systems with large, variable time delays. The control of such a process is a difficult task, in specific literature being proposed complex control algorithms. The main goal of the present paper is to design a simple control scheme based on active disturbance rejection method. For accurate modeling of the plant a fractional-order model is used. The active disturbance rejection control (ADRC) considers the gain uncertainty of the fractional-order plant model as a common disturbance. Using a proper observer will reject it. Simulation results are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.