Simulation of Adaptive Control of Continuous Stirred Tank Reactor

Chemical reactors are often characterized by highly nonlinear behaviour. In such cases, the use of conventional control strategies where controllers have fixed parameters can result in poor performance. Knowledge about the static and dynamic properties is a necessary condition for the design of a controller. Unfortunately, measurements on the real system are not always feasible. The only way as to how to obtain static and dynamic behaviour of these systems is through the use of simulations, i.e. experiments on their mathematical model. Steady-state analysis shows the behaviour of the system in the steady state, which can help with the choice of the optimal working point, i.e. the appropriate combination of the input variables, which results in maximal production with minimal cost. On the other hand, the dynamic analysis results in the suitable control strategy. The adaptive approach in this work uses the recursive identification and the polynomial synthesis with the pole-placement method. (Received in November 2008, accepted in March 2009. This paper was with the authors 1 month for 1 revision.)