State observers for tubular reactors with unknown kinetics

In this paper, the extension to tubular reactors of asymptotic observers or iginally developed for STR is first discussed and illustrated with real-lif e data on an non-isothermal fixed bed reactor. Then it will be shown how to design exponential observers, which are also independent of the process ki netics but for which the rate of convergence may be arbitrarily fixed (unli ke the asymptotic observers for which the rate of convergence depends on th e operating conditions). (C) 2000 IFAC. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.