Control of tubular reactor using finite-based I/O linearization technique

This paper proposes a new control technique for a tubular reactor modeled by first-order hyperbolic partial differential equations (PDEs). The concept of Input-Output (I/O) linearization technique is extended to apply to hyperbolic PDEs. The finite difference method is applied in the synthesis of the feedback controller, and the online computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model is used to predict the state dynamics. The controller is designed to enforce the outputs to follow their corresponding reference trajectories. The performances of the proposed method are simulated with the application of a non-isothermal tubular reactor under the servo and regulatory tests. The results show that the control method successfully forces the output to the desired setpoint.