A case study of adaptive nonlinear regulation of fed-batch biological reactors

Dynamics of fed-batch biological stirred tank reactors are commonly described by a set of ordinary differential equations arising from mass balances of the biological species (microorganisms, enzymes, substrates, etc.) involved in the process. A basic difficulty for the application of modern control science to these processes lies in the fact that the models usually include kinetic parameters which are highly uncertain and slowly time-varying. For this reason, fed-batch reactors are good candidates for the application of adaptive nonlinear control (ANC) techniques in order to robustify the systems performances against parametric uncertainties. The aim of this paper is to present a general methodology for the design of adaptive regulators for fed-batch biological reactors with the aid of an illustrative case study which has given rise to a genuine industrial application. The