Process Control Applications in Microbial Fuel Cells(MFC)

abstract: Microbial fuel cells(MFC) use micro-organisms called anode-respiring bacteria(ARB) to convert chemical energy into electrical energy. This process can not only treat wastewater but can also produce useful byproduct hydrogen peroxide(H2O2). Process variables like anode potential and pH play important role in the MFC operation and the focus of this dissertation are pH and potential control problems. Most of the adaptive pH control solutions use signal-based-norms as cost functions, but their strong dependency on excitation signal properties makes them sensitive to noise, disturbances, and modeling errors. System-based-norm( H-infinity) cost functions provide a viable alternative for the adaptation as they are less susceptible to the signal properties. Two variants of adaptive pH control algorithms that use approximate H-infinity frequency loop-shaping (FLS) cost metrics are proposed in this dissertation. A pH neutralization process with high retention time is studied using lab scale experiments and the experimental setup is used as a basis to develop a first-principles model. The analysis of such a model shows that only the gain of the process varies significantly with operating conditions and with buffering capacity. Consequently, the adaptation of the controller gain (single parameter) is sufficient to compensate for the variation in process gain and the focus of the proposed algorithms is the adaptation of the PI controller gain. Computer simulations and lab-scale experiments are used to study tracking, disturbance rejection and adaptation performance of these algorithms under different excitation conditions. Results show the proposed algorithm produces optimum that is less dependent on the excitation as compared to a commonly used L2 cost function based algorithm and tracks set-points reasonably well under practical conditions. The proposed direct pH control algorithm is integrated with the combined activated sludge anaerobic digestion model (CASADM) of an MFC and it is shown pH control improves its performance. Analytical grade potentiostats are commonly used in MFC potential control, but, their high cost (>$6000) and large size, make them nonviable for the field usage. This dissertation proposes an alternate low-cost($200) portable potentiostat solution. This potentiostat is tested using a ferricyanide reactor and results show it produces performance close to an analytical grade potentiostat.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Electrical Engineering 201

Multiple Model Adaptive Regulation

A single controller may be inadequate for systems that experience structural changes that arise, for example, from component failures. Such systems are often modeled by a family of plants with structural diversity. At any given time the appropriate plant model is uncertain. Adaptation is required for the parameter dependent family of plants but continuous adaptive regulation is limited by relative degree and right half plane zeros. A form of adaptive regulation is presented that accommodates these changes. The Multiple Model Adaptive Regulator selects a controller from a predefined set to achieve performance goals. In general, the set of controllers is finite although the family of plants may be continuous. The set of controllers accommodates a structurally diverse family of plants. A multiple model controller design has two subproblems, covering and switching. The covering subproblem is to design a small set of controllers such that each possible plant is stabilized by at least one controller. The switching subproblem is to select a stabilizing controller from the set of controllers. In this research, the covering and switching subproblems are solved with LQR state feedback and Lyapunov function switch logic respectively. The LQR and Common Quadratic Lyapunov Function design problems are combined into a set of Linear Matrix Inequalities (LMI) and concurrently solved. Design constraints on the open loop plant and the regulator are presented. The multiple model adaptive regulator is applied to systems with diverse zero structure.Ph.D., Mechanical Engineering -- Drexel University, 201

Advances in Youla-Kucera parametrization: A Review

International audienceYoula-Kucera (YK) parametrization was formulated decades ago for obtaining the set of controllers stabilizing a linear plant. This fundamental result of control theory has been used to develop theoretical tools solving many control problems ranging from stable controller switching, closed-loop identification, robust control, disturbance rejection, adaptive control to fault tolerant control.This paper collects the recent work and classifies the maccording to the use of YK parametrization, Dual YK parametrization or both, providing the latest advances with main applications indifferent control fields. A final discussion gives some insights on the future trends in the field

Multiple-Model Robust Adaptive Vehicle Motion Control

An improvement in active safety control systems has become necessary to assist drivers in unfavorable driving conditions. In these conditions, the dynamic of the vehicle shows rather different respond to driver command. Since available sensor technologies and estimation methods are insufficient, uncertain nonlinear tire characteristics and road condition may not be correctly figured out. Thus, the controller cannot provide the appropriate feedback input to vehicle, which may result in deterioration of controller performance and even in loss of vehicle control. These problems have led many researchers to new active vehicle stability controllers which make vehicle robust against critical driving conditions like harsh maneuvers in which tires show uncertain nonlinear behaviour and/or the tire-road friction coefficient is uncertain and low. In this research, the studied vehicle has active front steering system for driver steer correction and in-wheel electric motors in all wheels to generate torque vector at vehicle center of gravity. To address robustness against uncertain nonlinear characteristics of tire and road condition, new blending based multiple-model adaptive schemes utilizing gradient and recursive least squares (RLS) methods are proposed for a faster system identification. To this end, the uncertain nonlinear dynamics of vehicle motion is addressed as a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) linear system with polytopic parameter uncertainties. These polytopic uncertainties denote uncertain variation in tire longitudinal and lateral force capacity due to nonlinear tire characteristics and road condition. In the proposed multiple-model approach, a set of fixed linear parametric identifi cation models are designed in advance, based on the known bounds of polytopic parameter set. The proposed adaptive schemes continuously generates a weighting vector for blending the identifi cation model to achieve the true model (operation condition) of the vehicle. Furthermore, the proposed adaptive schemes are generalized for MIMO systems with polytopic parameter uncertainties. The asymptotic stability of the proposed adaptive identifi cation schemes for linear MIMO systems is studied in detail. Later, the proposed blending based adaptive identi fication schemes are used to develop Linear Quadratic (LQ) based multiple-model adaptive control (MMAC) scheme for MIMO systems with polytopic parameter uncertainties. To this end, for each identi fication model, an optimal LQ controller is computed on-line for the corresponding model in advance, which saves computation power during operation. The generated control inputs from the set of LQ controllers is being blended on-line using weighting vector continuously updated by the proposed adaptive identifi cation schemes. The stability analysis of the proposed LQ based optimal MMAC scheme is provided. The developed LQ based optimal MMAC scheme has been applied to motion control of the vehicle. The simulation application to uncertain lateral single-track vehicle dynamics is presented in Simulink environment. The performances of the proposed LQ based MMAC utilizing RLS and gradient based methods have been compared to each other and an LQ controller which is designed using the same performance matrices and fixed nominal values of the uncertain parameters. The results validated the stability and effectiveness of the proposed LQ based MMAC algorithm and demonstrate that the proposed adaptive LQ control schemes outperform over the LQ control scheme for tracking tasks. In the next step, we addressed the constraints on actuation systems for a model predictive control (MPC) based MMAC design. To determine the constraints on torque vectoring at vehicle center of gravity (CG), we have used the min/max values of torque and torque rate at each corner, and the vehicle kinematic structure information. The MPC problem has been redefi ned as a constrained quadratic programming (QP) problem which is solved in real-time via interior-point algorithm by an embedded QP solver using MATLAB each time step. The solution of the designed MPC based MMAC provides total steering angle and desired torque vector at vehicle CG which is optimally distributed to each corner based on holistic corner control (HCC) principle. For validation of the designed MPC based MMAC scheme, several critical driving scenarios has been simulated using a high- fidelity vehicle simulation environment CarSim/Simulink. The performance of the proposed MPC based MMAC has been compared to an MPC controller which is designed for a wet road condition using the same tuning parameters in objective function design. The results validated the stability and effectiveness of the proposed MPC based MMAC algorithm and demonstrate that the proposed adaptive control scheme outperform over an MPC controller with fixed parameter values for tracking tasks

On Control and Estimation of Large and Uncertain Systems

This thesis contains an introduction and six papers about the control and estimation of large and uncertain systems. The first paper poses and solves a deterministic version of the multiple-model estimation problem for finite sets of linear systems. The estimate is an interpolation of Kalman filter estimates. It achieves a provided energy gain bound from disturbances to the point-wise estimation error, given that the gain bound is feasible. The second paper shows how to compute upper and lower bounds for the smallest feasible gain bound. The bounds are computed via Riccati recursions. The third paper proves that it is sufficient to consider observer-based feedback in output-feedback control of linear systems with uncertain parameters, where the uncertain parameters belong to a finite set. The paper also contains an example of a discrete-time integrator with unknown gain. The fourth paper argues that the current methods for analyzing the robustness of large systems with structured uncertainty do not distinguish between sparse and dense perturbations and proposes a new robustness measure that captures sparsity. The paper also thoroughly analyzes this new measure. In particular, it proposes an upper bound that is amenable to distributed computation and valuable for control design. The fifth paper solves the problem of localized state-feedback L2 control with communication delay for large discrete-time systems. The synthesis procedure can be performed for each node in parallel. The paper combines the localized state-feedback controller with a localized Kalman filter to synthesize a localized output feedback controller that stabilizes the closed-loop subject to communication constraints. The sixth paper concerns optimal linear-quadratic team-decision problems where the team does not have access to the model. Instead, the players must learn optimal policies by interacting with the environment. The paper contains algorithms and regret bounds for the first- and zeroth-order information feedback

Guaranteed safe switching for switching adaptive control

Adaptive control algorithms may not behave well in practice due to discrepancies between the theory and actual practice. The proposed results in this manuscript constitute an effort in providing algorithms which assure more reliable operation in practice. Our emphasis is on algorithms that will be safe in the sense of not permitting destabilizing controllers to be switched in the closed-loop and to prevent wild signal fluctuations to occur. Coping with the connection or possible connection of destabilizing controllers is indeed a daunting task. One of the most intuitive forms of adaptive control, gain scheduling, is an approach to control of non-linear systems which utilizes a family of linear controllers, each of which provides satisfactory control for a different operating point of the system. We provide a mechanism for guaranteeing closed-loop stability over rapid switching between controllers. Our proposed design provides a simplification using only finite number of pre-determined values for the controller gain, where the observer gain is computed via a table look-up method. In comparison to the original gain scheduling design which our procedure builds on, our design achieves similar performance but with much less computational burden. Many multi-controller adaptive switching algorithms do not explicitly rule out the possibility of switching a destabilizing controller into the closed-loop. Even if the new controller is ensured to be stabilizing, performance verification with the new controller is not straightforward. The importance of this arises in iterative identification and control algorithms and multiple model adaptive control (MMAC). We utilize a limited amount of experimental and possibly noisy data obtained from a closed-loop consisting of an existing known stabilizing controller connected to an unknown plant-to infer if the introduction of a prospective controller will stabilize the unknown plant. We propose analysis results in a nonlinear setting and provide data-based tests for verifying the closed-loop stability with the introduction of a new nonlinear controller to replace a linear controller. We also propose verification tools for the closed-loop performance with the introduction of a new stabilizing controller using a limited amount of data obtained from the existing stable closed-loop. The simulation results in different practical scenarios demonstrate efficacy and versatility of our results, and illustrate practicality of our novel data-based tests in addressing an instability problem in adaptive control algorithms

Polynomial system identification modeling and adaptive model predictive control of arterial oxygen saturation in premature infants

The automation of the regulation of the fraction of inspired oxygen (FiO2) in neonatal mechanical ventilation to treat respiratory distress syndrome has proven challenging due to competing objectives: maintaining arterial oxygen saturation levels (SpO2) while simultaneously not inducing complications such as retrolental fibroplasia. Historically, models of the dynamics of the neonatal respiratory system were first order transfer function approximations. This work used higher order polynomial system identification methods with the model structures of autoregressive with exogenous inputs (ARX) and Box-Jenkins (BJ) models to investigate possible improved modeling of the dynamic relationship between the FiO2, Heart Rate (HR), and Respiratory Rate (RR) to the SpO2. Through a parameter sweep of different of polynomial orders and sampling delays, 3,456 ARX models and 13,176 BJ models were created, with four being selected for comparison based upon modeling performance metrics. From these best performing models, it was concluded that the FiO2 relationship to SpO2 could still be adequately approximated by a first order transfer function model with delay. The disturbance HR, RR, and the unmodeled dynamics did require higher order approximations. It was also shown that selecting a model based off the Akaike's Information Criterion was preferred in picking a model from a collection of identified models. With a singular winning model from the four best performing models, an adaptive model predictive controller (AMPC) was designed to adhere to clinical best practices to regulate the SpO2. Through a recursive polynomial model estimator (RPME), an ARX approximation of the unknown model's dynamics for the FiO2, HR, and RR relationship to the SpO2 could be used to update the internal model of the AMPC. Through this online model estimation, the AMPC could successfully feedforward reject the HR and RR disturbances improving the simulated time within the SpO2 target limits, 67.8% of simulation time, to a baseline PI controller's 56.6%, in periodic desaturation simulations.Includes bibliographical references (pages 63-65)

An on-line equivalent system identification scheme for adaptive control

A prime obstacle to the widespread use of adaptive control is the degradation of performance and possible instability resulting from the presence of unmodeled dynamics. The approach taken is to explicitly include the unstructured model uncertainty in the output error identification algorithm. The order of the compensator is successively increased by including identified modes. During this model building stage, heuristic rules are used to test for convergence prior to designing compensators. Additionally, the recursive identification algorithm as extended to multi-input, multi-output systems. Enhancements were also made to reduce the computational burden of an algorithm for obtaining minimal state space realizations from the inexact, multivariate transfer functions which result from the identification process. A number of potential adaptive control applications for this approach are illustrated using computer simulations. Results indicated that when speed of adaptation and plant stability are not critical, the proposed schemes converge to enhance system performance

The heterogeneous multiscale method

The heterogeneous multiscale method (HMM), a general framework for designing multiscale algorithms, is reviewed. Emphasis is given to the error analysis that comes naturally with the framework. Examples of finite element and finite difference HMM are presented. Applications to dynamical systems and stochastic simulation algorithms with multiple time scales, spall fracture and heat conduction in microprocessors are discusse