Multivariable robust control of a power plant deaerator

The design of a robust controller for the deaerator of the Experimental Breeder Reactor-II (EBR-II) that uses the linear quadratic Gaussian with loop transfer recovery (LQG/LTR) procedure is described. At present, classical proportional-integral (PI) controllers are used to control the deaerator. When the operating condition changes, the system is disturbed, or a fault occurs, and the PI controllers may fail to maintain the desired performance. A robust controller that can accommodate system faults and obtain a reasonable behavior for a wide range of model uncertainty was designed. The controller provides the desired performance despite a considerable change in the operating condition, accommodates some of the failures that can occur, and provides the choice of penalizing one variable over another. The design is tested for robustness by varying the system operating conditions and simulating a steam valve failure. The set of nonlinear simulations using the modular modeling system and the advanced continuous simulation language is included