DESIGN OF A STABLE ADAPTIVE NONLINEAR OBSERVER FOR AN EXOTHERMIC STIRRED-TANK REACTOR

A stable nonlinear adaptive observer is constructed to estimate reacta nt composition and uncertain model parameters from temperature measure ments in an exothermic stirred tank reactor. The construction is based on an adaptive observer canonical formulation proposed in the literat ure. Only a very limited class of nonlinear systems are known to be tr ansformable to this canonical form, the exothermic reactor with first order irreversible kinetics however reveals itself to be suitable for the transformation. The utility of the adaptive observer is demonstrat ed by simulations while implementing feedback linearizing control of t he reactor in the presence of state and parametric uncertainties. (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd.