Robust controller design for a nuclear power plant using H∞ optimization

This paper presents an application of H_∞ optimal control to a nuclear power plant. Data of a pressurized heavy water reactor as well as actuator models incorporating nonlinearities was provided for the purpose by the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (India). Starting from the identification around a nominal operating point to the final controller validation by studying responses for set point changes and disturbance rejection, a detailed description is presented. The normalized coprime factorization approach is adopted to synthesize the H _∞ controller