Computers and Chemical Engineering 23 (1999) 697 – 708

Robust asymptotic linearization via uncertainty estimation:

regulation of temperature in a fluidized bed reactor
Ricardo Femat *, José Alvarez-Ramı́rez, Miguel Rosales-Torres
Departamento de Ingenierı́a de Procesos e Hidráulica, Uni6ersidad Autonoma Metropolitana. Iztapalapa Apdo. Postal 55 -534,
09000 Mexico D.F., Mexico
Received 5 September 1998; accepted 22 December 1998

Abstract

This work deals with the temperature control in a fluidized bed reactor (FBR). The strategy is an input – output linearizing
feedback control scheme which involves an uncertainties dynamic estimator. The developed dynamic compensator allows accurate
temperature regulation in spite of uncertainties associated with modelling errors. As the uncertainty estimation converges to the
actual uncertainties, the controller achieves asymptotic input – output linearization. The control strategy for the FBR based upon
this scheme resulted in good performance on temperature set-point tracking. © 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Robust linearizing feedback control; Uncertainties estimation; Fluidized bed reactor

1. Introduction ear terms in order to obtain a linear input–output

Over the past years, non-linear control based on
differential geometry emerged as a powerful tool to
deal with a large class of non-linear systems (see for
instance, Henson & Seborg, 1990). This approach is
based on non-linear transformations on the state and
on the manipulated input, which, when applied to a
given non-linear system, will provide an input – output
closed-loop linear dynamical behavior (Kravaris &
Chung, 1987; Isidori, 1989). The theory is well devel-
oped and some extensions have been proposed to the
basic input–output linearization scheme. For instance,
Kravaris and Soroush (1990) provided necessary and
sufficient conditions for multiple output application of
input–output linearization as well as discussed an ap-
proach to non-linear input – output decoupling. Also,
several works have been reported to extend input–out-
put linearization to certain classes of non-minimum
phase systems (Doyle, Francis & Tannenbaum, 1992;
Tornambè, 1992; Kravaris, Daoutidis & Wright, 1994).
One drawback of input – output linearizing control
techniques is that they rely on cancellation of non-lin-
* Corresponding author. Fax: +52-5-7244900.
E-mail address: cdp@xanum.uam.mx (R. Femat)
behavior. Indeed, the cancellation is not longer exact in
the presence of modelling uncertainties or in the pres-
ence of unmeasured disturbance. Hence, a robust con-
trol procedure is required to account for uncertainties
and disturbances. An often strategy to deal with model
uncertainties is to introduce some kind of integral
action (Kendi & Doyle, 1996). A common heuristic
approach is to introduce integral action in the stabiliz-
ing part of the linearizing feedback. However, in most
cases is not an easy task to prove that such control
strategy yields robust regulation and signal tracking in
the presence of uncertainties. Besides, there does not
exist a clear procedure to tune the resulting controller.
If the gain of the integrator is high, overshoot will
occur. As it was pointed out by Ray (1981), signal
overshoot is highly undesirable in process control like
temperature regulation of exothermic reactors.
In the case of parametric uncertainties, adaptive con-
trol has been used as a natural tool and interesting
solution since one can hope that, as estimated parame-
ters converge to the true ones, exact cancellation of
non-linear terms would be obtained (Bastin & Dochain,
1988; Isidori & Byrnes, 1990). Several successful appli-
cations of these adaptive schemes have been reported in
process control such as bioreactors and fluidized bed

0098-1354/99/$ - see front matter © 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 0 9 8 - 1 3 5 4 ( 9 9 ) 0 0 0 0 9 - 5
698 R. Femat et al. / Computers and Chemical Engineering 23 (1999) 697–708
reactors (Bastin & Dochain, 1990; Aoufoussi, Perrier,
Chavarie & Dochain, 1992). Approximate input –state
linearization approaches as well as adaptive input–out-
put linearization approaches are based on m-order
polynomial approximation (Kendi & Doyle, 1996). The
idea of polynomial approximation is to obtain a lin-
early parametrized description of the system dynamics,
so adaptive and anti-windup techniques can be applied.
The control performance is also acceptable, neverthe-
less, a part of non-linear information is lost due to the
approximation and poor robust stability is obtained
(Aoufoussi et al., 1992; Kendi & Doyle, 1996). In case
that the system can be written in cascade form (strict
feedback form), adaptive (iterative) backstepping tech-
niques can be easily implemented (Krishć et al., 1992),
which leads to asymptotic stability of the underlying
closed-loop system. Output feedback version of adap-
tive backstepping designs and non-linear extensions
have been proposed (Karsenti, Lamnabhi-Lagarrigue &
Bastin, 1996). The main drawback of most parameter
adaptive techniques is the restrictive conditions of lin-
early parametrized required to their application. How-
ever, most chemical processes are not linearly
parametrized and although some extensions to non-lin-
early parametrized systems have been developed (see
Karsenti et al., 1996 and references therein), such adap-
tive control schemes are very complex to be physically
implemented (Bos' cović, 1995; Bos' cović & Narendra,
1995) or assume very restrictive conditions such as
passivity (Seron, Hill and Fradkov, 1995; Ortega,
1996). Besides, the often uncertainties associated with
chemical processes are not of parametric type. Such is
the case in catalytic chemical reactors where the uncer-
tainties are associated with poor knowledge of chemical
kinetics and reaction mechanism. On the other hand,
non-linear adaptive controllers require prior informa-
tion about: (a) the non-linear model of the system and
(b) bounds of the parameters which, in most chemical
processes, is hard to obtain from available data.
The aim of this work is to describe the design and the
application of a robust feedback control to regulate
temperature as well as set-point tracking in a FBR.
Contrary to adaptive techniques, our control scheme
requires least prior information about the system (it
does not assume linearity in parameters neither realize
an m-order polynomial approximation of the non-lin-
ear system nor requires prior information about the
non-linearity of the system, nor parameter bounds ei-
ther). The main idea is to define a non-linear function
which lumps the uncertainties of the system and the
external disturbances. In such way, the lumping non-
linear function can be interpreted as a new state in an
externally dynamically equivalent extended system. The
new state is estimated using a Luenberger-like filter. The
estimated value of the new state (and consequently of
the uncertainties and unmeasured disturbances) is in-
cluded in an approximate input–output linearizing
feedback, which leads to asymptotic linearization of the
closed-loop input–output behavior. Then, uncertainties
estimation requires only reactor temperature measure-
ments and an upper bound of certain ‘high-frequency’
gain. As a consequence, our control algorithm requires
least a priori knowledge than previously reported al-
gorithms and the order of the proposed dynamic com-
pensator is lowest. To show analytically stability of the
underlying closed-loop system under the proposed con-
troller, we base strongly the stability proof on previous
results about output feedback of non-linear systems
with high-gain state estimation (Esfandiari & Khalil,
1992).
As in the case of recently reported adaptive con-
trollers (Aoufoussi et al., 1992; Bos' cović, 1995), the
proposed controller is based on Geometrical Control
techniques. Included our controller, these adaptive
strategies involve an adaptation mechanism into the
control loop such that asymptotic input–output lin-
earization of the resulting closed-loop system is at-
tained. In this way, important advantages of nominal
input–output linearization (pole placement, signal
tracking, canonical design and output decoupling) are
recovered. In this sense, under adequate tuning proce-
dure, it is expected that proposed adaptive controllers
give comparable closed-loop performance. However,
the proposed controller has the following advantages
over previously reported adaptive schemes:
1. Parametrization of the uncertainties is not required.
Such that, our control strategy can be seen as an
adaptive, nonparametrized one (that is, instanta-
neous dynamics of uncertain function rather than
unknown parameters are estimated). This is impor-
tant for chemical reactors control where the func-
tionality (and correspondingly, the structure of the
parametrization) of chemical kinetics terms are
hardly known.
2. As a consequence of (i), neither linear parametriza-
tion (Bastin & Dochain, 1990) nor particular
parametrization (Bos' cović, 1995) of the uncertain
terms are required.
3. Previous algebraic handling, such as m-polynomial
approximation (Kendi & Doyle, 1996), of the uncer-
tainties is not required.
Thus, the main advantage of our control strategy is
that it can deal with a more general class of uncertain-
ties and the derivation of the controller is relatively
easy and based on previously reported results on output
feedback.
The work is organized as follows. Section 2 presents
a brief review of the input–output linearizing control
method. Section 3 presents modifications to the basic
algorithm to handle model uncertainties and unmea-
sured disturbances. The stability of the resulting closed-
loop system is also discussed. In Section 4, the
 R. Femat et al. / Computers and Chemical Engineering 23 (1999) 697–708
application of the proposed control to a FBR and
computer simulations which show the performance of
the control input are presented. The work is closed with
some concluding remarks.
2. Linearizing feedback control method
There has been a growing interest in the application
of differential geometry into the control theory. Two
approaches have prevailed. Hunt, Su and Meyer (1983)
suggest carrying out a transformation of the state–
space description of the non-linear system into a linear
0. In actual applications, yr =0
one. The invoked conditions are quite restrictive and
the method involves highly complex transformations
which limit the applicability in practice. The input–out-
put linearization method (Isidori, 1989) is an state
feedback control law that provides linearity of the
closed-loop system. Input – output linearization is very
promising in its applications to chemical reactors be-
cause it does not require to derive a full state linear
equivalent of the non-linear system, although it only
applies to minimum-phase systems (Kravaris & Chung,
1987).
2.1. Background
Let us give a brief review of the input – output lin-
earization method for affine non-linear systems. Con-
sider the following class of non-linear dynamical
systems
x; =f(x(t))+g(x(t))u y =h(x(t))
where x(t)R is a states vector, u R is a scalar input,
n
yR is the system output, h(x(t)) is a smooth function,
f(x(t)) and g(x(t)) are smooth vector fields. For the
sake of simplicity in presentation, we omit time depen-
dence. Differentiating the output y with respect to time,
we obtain y; = Lf h(x) + Lgh(x)u, where Lf h(x)= Si =
1n fi (x) (h(x)/(xi is the Lie derivative of h(x) with
respect to f(x), if Lgh(x) = 0 for all x, one must
differentiate again to get ÿ= L2f h(x) + Lg Lf h(x)u.
More generally, if r is a lowest integer such that
(i) Lg Lif h(x)=0, i= 1, 2, ... , r −2
r−1
(ii) Lg L f h(x)"0
then, we can write the first r time derivative of the
output y as follows
y (i) =Lif h(x), i=1, 2, ... , r − 2
y (r) = Lrf h(x)+ Lg Lrf − 1h(x)u
where Lif h(x)= Lf (Lif− 1h(x)) and Lg Lif h(x)=
Lg (Lif h(x)). If conditions (2) hold at x = x0, the sys-
tem (1) is said to have relative degree r at point x0.
Relative degree is exactly equal to the number of times
699
that one has differentiate the output y before input u
explicitly appears (Isidori, 1989). By defining r new
co-ordinates as zi + 1 = y (i ) = Lif h(x), 15 i5r, system
(1) can be written in the following canonical form
z; i = zi + 1 i= 1, 2, ... , r− 1
z; r = a(z, 6)+g(z, 6)u
6; = z(z, 6)
y= z1 (4)
where y =z1 is the system output. Without lost of
generality, in what follows we will assume that the
output reference yr
can be achieved by a simple change of co-ordinates
(translation of the nominal equilibrium point to origin
of the coordinates frame). Since Eq. (3.2), if Lg Lrf −
1h(x) is bounded away from zero it is easy to see that
the feedback control u= [−Lrf h(x)+V(x)]/Lg Lrf − 1
is an input–output linearizing control law. Besides if
the coefficients Ki (i= 1, 2, … , p) of V(x, t)=Kr (Lrf −
1h(x))+ … +K1(y), are such that the polynomial
Pr (s)= s r = Krs r − 1 + …+ K2s+ K1 = 0 be Hurwitz,
the above feedback control will yield asymptotic stabi-
lization of the system (4). Moreover, the input–output
linearizing control law can be expressed as
1
u(z, n)= [a(z, n)+ K Tz] (5)
g(z, n)
under the new co-ordinates zi, and the control gains K %s
i
given as above.
Thus, the closed-loop dynamics can be written in the
(1) following form
z; = Az
6; = z(z, n) (6)
where A is the r-dimensional companion matrix of the
coefficients K %s
i whose characteristic equation is given
by the Hurwitz polynomial Pr (s). z and n are the
observable and unobservable states of the closed-loop
system, respectively. Since the matrix A is Hurwitz, it is
clear that the closed-loop system is stable if the unob-
servable states n (which corresponds to the so-called
zero dynamics) are bounded for all t] 0 and the dy-
namical system n; = z(z, n) is asymptotically stable for a
(2) given constant value of z (minimum-phase) (Sussman &
Kokotovic, 1991).
2.2. Output feedback control
(3.1)
If the states (z, n) are not available for feedback, the
(3.2)
linearizing control law (5) can not be directly imple-
mented. In fact, an estimate of (z, n) are required. We
will design a feedback assuming that n is available for
feedback. This is not a reasonable supposition, how-
ever, we use it as an intermediate assumption toward
700 R. Femat et al. / Computers and Chemical Engineering 23 (1999) 697–708
final controller to be designed in the next section. Thus,
from (4) one can note that the states z  Rr are observ-
able such that they can be reconstructed from the
knowledge of the output y and input u. Some works
regarding the stabilization of non-linear systems via
output feedback have been reported (see for instance,
Teel & Praly 1991; Esfandiari & Khalil, 1992). Most of
such works deal with the case where the system (1) is
linearizable by means of feedback actions. The idea is
to transform system (1) into the canonical form (4), and
then to design a high-gain Luenberger-like observer to
estimate z (Teel & Praly, 1991). In such case, the
following state estimator is obtained:
z̆; i = z̆i + 1 +L ib*(z
i 1 − z̆1), 1 5 iBr
z̆; r = a(z̆, n) + g(z̆, n)u + L rb*r (z1 −z̆1)
where the positive constants b *’s
i are chosen such that
the polynomial s r +b *s
i
r−1
+… +b *r =0 is Hurwitz.
L is a positive parameter to be adjusted (observer
high-gain). The feedback control law (5) becomes
1 (A1) The system output y=z1 is available for
u(z̆, 6)= [− a(z̆, 6) +K Tz̆]
g(z̆, 6)
Feedback control based on high-gain observers can
induce undesirable dynamics effects such as the so-
called peaking phenomenon (Ray, 1981; Sussman &
Kokotovic, 1991). This phenomenon can lead to closed-
loop instabilities represented by finite-time escapes and
large overshooting. To diminish the effect of these
instabilities, the controller (8) is commonly modified by
means of
! "
1 are unobservable under closed-loop conditions (Isidori,
u s(z̆, 6) =Sat ( −a(z̆, 6) + K Tz̆)
g(z̆, 6)
where Sat{·}: R “B is a saturation function and B¦R
is a bounded set. Moreover, it is possible prove that
output feedback controller (9) leads to semiglobal
asymptotic stabilization of system (7) (see Theorem 2 in
Esfandiari & Khalil, 1992). Semiglobal stability is used
to indicate that the estimate of the region of attraction
can be made arbitrarily large, so as to include any given
compact set of initial conditions (Sussman & Koko-
tovic, 1991). The fact that the controller (7), (9) can
only achieve semiglobal stability is a consequence of the
global boundedness of the control input given by (9).
However, global boundedness of the control input is
required to satisfy conditions of Theorem 2 in Esfandi-
ari and Khalil (1992) (see also Teel & Praly, 1991). A
globally bounded control does not eliminate the peak-
ing phenomenon (overshooting), but it limits its effect.
With an order O(L r) initial conditions for z̆, the estima-
tion error will exhibits an impulsive-like behavior, but
the bounded control will isolate this behavior from the
state of the plant z.
The high-gain observer (7) solves the problem of the
unmeasured states z by providing an estimate of them.
To derive (9), we assumed that the states n were avail-
able for feedback. On the other hand, if the vector
fields f(x) and g(x) are uncertain, the co-ordinates
transformation z= T(x) bringing (1) into (4) and the
functions a(z, n), g(z, n) are also uncertain. Conse-
quently, the functions a(z, n) and g(z, n) cannot be used
just as they are in the state estimator system (7) neither
linearizing control law (9). Hence the output feedback
control (7), (9) must be modified to account for uncer-
tainties in the system model.
3. Feedback stabilization under uncertain vector fields
(7)
In what follows, the output feedback control (7), (9)
will be modified to account for uncertainties associated
with the unmeasured states n, modelling errors, para-
metric variations and external perturbations.
We make the following assumptions regarding the
state representation (4)
(8)
feedback.
(A2) g(z, n) is bounded away from zero.
(A3) The system is minimum-phase.
(A4) The vector functions a(z, n), g(z, n) are uncer-
tain. An estimate ĝ(z) of g(z, n) satisfying sign
(ĝ(z, t))= sign(g(z, n)) is available.
The assumption (A4) will be important to establish
the stability properties of the resulting closed-loop sys-
tem (see Appendix A). Note that the estimate ĝ(z) does
not depend on the zero dynamics states nRr − n, which
(9) 1989). In this way, ĝ(z) is either a constant or a
function depending only on the observable states zRr.
The implications of the above assumptions are dis-
cussed in the next section.
Let us define U(z, n, u)=a(z, n)+ d(z, n)u and h=
U(z, n, u). Thus, the system (4) can be rewritten as
follows
z; i = zi + 1, 15 i5 r− 1
z; r = h+ ĝ(z)u
h; =J(z, h, 6, u)
6; = z(z, 6) (10)
where
J(z, h, n, u)
= Srk =
−1
1 zk + 1 (k U(z, n, u, t)+ [h+ ĝ(z)u] (r U(z, n, t)
+ d(z, n, t)u; +(td(z, n, t)u
(U(z, u)
+ (6 U(z, n, u, t) z(z, n), (k U(z, n, u)= .
(xk
 R. Femat et al. / Computers and Chemical Engineering 23 (1999) 697–708
It is straightforward to prove that C(z, h, n, u) = h−
U(z, n, u) is a first-integral (Aeyels & Sepulchre, 1992)
of system (10). This means that along the trajectories
of system (10), one has that dC(z, h, n, u)/dt = 0 for
all t]0 and any differentiable control u. The states
representation (10) is externally equivalent to the sys-
tem (4), as long as initial conditions satisfy
C(z0, h0, n0, u0)= 0, that is the ‘state’ provides the dy-
namics of the uncertain function U(z, n, u) which in-
volve the uncertain model structure.
Some important remarks concerning system (10)
are in order. (a) A geometric interpretation of the
states representation (10) is as follows. If z(t) is a
solution of system (4) with initial conditions (z0, u0)
and (z, h) is a solution to (10) with initial conditions
(z0, h0, n0, u0), then the equality C(z0, h0, n0, u0)= 0
and the condition that dC(z, h, n, u)/dt = 0 imply that
the solution of (4) is a projection of solution of (10).
(b) A feature of the system (10) is that the uncertain-
ties have been lumped into a uncertain function
U(z, n, u) which can be estimated by an unmeasurable
but observable state h. If one is able to stabilize sys-
tem (10) without make use of the constraints
C(z0, h0, n0, u0)= 0, one would be able to stabilize the
system (4) and its equivalent system (1).
Let us now consider the following linearizing-like
feedback control law
1
u(z, h)= (− h+ K Tz) (11)
ĝ(z)
where KRn is chosen such that the polynomial s r +
Kns r − 1 +… +K2s + K1 =0 is Hurwitz. If the initial
conditions satisfy C(z0, h0, n0, u(z0, h0)) = 0, then un-
der (11) the states (z, h) converge exponentially to
zero. Convergence of z to zero follows from the fact
that the closed-loop system is in cascade form. Since
f(x) is smooth a(z, n) is also smooth. Hence the con-
trol dynamics are given by u; = ( −J(z, h, 6, u) + K Tz; )/
ĝ(z). Since J(z, h, n, u(z, h)) is a smooth function, u; is
also a smooth function. Consequently, C(z, h, n, u)=
h− U(z, n, u) is a first-integral of the closed-loop sys-
tem (Aeyels & Sepulchre, 1992).
The following procedure can be used to show that
the new state, h, is bounded if the states (z, n) are
bounded. We have that h=a(z, n)= d(z, n)u, using
Eq. (11) one can see that
ĝ(z)(a, 6)+d(z, 6)K Tz
h= (12)
g(z, 6)
By assumption, all functions involved in the expres-
sion above are smooth and g(z, n) is bounded away
from zero. Thus, since n is bounded for all t]0
(minimum-phase assumption) and the feedback con-
troller (11) yields bounded trajectories of the states z,
then h is bounded for all t ] 0. On the other hand, if
z and n converge to an equilibrium point, h converges
701
to an equilibrium point. From the arguments above,
we conclude that if the original system (4) is mini-
mum-phase, the equivalent system (10) is also mini-
mum-phase.
Again, the linearizing-like feedback control law (11)
is not realizable because it requires knowledge of the
states z and the uncertain state h. As it has been
established in Eq. (7), the problem of estimating z
can be addressed by using a high-gain observer. Thus,
the dynamics of the states (z, h) can be reconstructed
from measurements of the output y= x1 = z1 in the
following way
ẑ; = ẑi + 1 + L ib*(x
i 1 − ẑ1), 15i 5r− 1
ẑ; r = ĥ+ ĝ(z)u+ L rb*r (x1 − ẑ1)
ĥ; = + L r + 1b*r + 1 (x1 − ẑ1) (13)
where b *%s i are chosen such that the polynomial
s r + 1 = b*r + 1 sr + ...+b*=
1 0 is Hurwitz. So, the lin-
earizing-like feedback control law (11) can be
modified as follows
u s(ẑ, ĥ)= Sat
! 1 "
(− ĥ+ K Tẑ) (14)
ĝ(ẑ)
The linearizing control law (13) only uses estimates
of U(z, n, u) (by means of h), g(z, 6) and z. Thus, the
modified feedback control law is given by the dy-
namic compensator (12) and the saturated control
(13). Note that since U(z, u) and d(z, n)u are uncer-
tain, the function J(z, h, u) is correspondingly un-
known. Thus, such term was neglected in the
construction of the observer (12). As the case of out-
put feedback control, one can use Theorem 2 in Es-
fandiari and Khalil, (1992) to conclude that the
controller (13) yields semiglobal asymptotic stabiliza-
tion of the uncertainty system (10), and consequently
of the uncertain system (1) (Appendix A). Specifically,
semiglobal stability results of the resulting closed-loop
system establishes the existence of a positive number
L* (depending mainly on the magnitude of
J(z, h, n, u) such that for a given compact set of ini-
tial conditions, W, there exists an observer gain L\
L* which guarantees that W is contained in the
region of attraction V(L) of the system. Besides, the
larger the value of the gain L, the larger the region
of attraction V(L) (i.e. S(L1)¤ V(L2) for L1 BL2).
From application viewpoint, rate of sampling and
noise measurement impose a limit in the achievable
closed-loop performance. In fact, it can also be
shown that noise measurement is amplified by the
observer with a gain L and transmitted to the feed-
back loop. So then, very large values of the observer
gain L must be avoided to limit controller degrada-
tion due to noise measurement and sampling rate of
the signals.
702 R. Femat et al. / Computers and Chemical Engineering 23 (1999) 697–708
4. Temperature regulation in a fluidized bed reactor
In this section, we apply the controller (12), (13) to
regulate temperature in a FBR where the oxidation of
benzene to maleic anhydride and carbon oxides is car-
ried out. First, general aspects of the process and
dynamic model of the FBR are presented. Thereafter,
the application of the linearizing-like feedback control
(12), (13) is presented. This section is closed with the
evaluation of the controller performance.
4.1. Dynamic model of a FBR
Maleic anhydride is an essential feedstock in the
production of unsaturated polyester resins, lubricating
additives, agricultural chemicals, and copolymers. The
maleic anhydride can be produced from oxidation of
benzene over a supported vanadium and molybdenum
catalyst. As of 1988, the majority of the total worldwide
production of maleic anhydride, 51% was obtained
from oxidation of benzene (see Kendi & Doyle (1996)
and references therein). A triangular reaction scheme
can represent the oxidation of benzene. The reaction
rate expressions are a pseudo-first order and they are
given by (Aoufoussi et al., 1992). The FBR is modeled
under the following assumptions: (i) a simple two phase
model; (ii) a perfectly mixed dense phase; and (iii) plug
flow in the bubble phase. The oxidation of benzene to
maleic anhydride is highly exothermic, therefore, a
temperature regulation is required. To carry out the
temperature control, the reactor is cooled by bowing
fresh air through a jacket. The resultant dimensionless
model is detailed in (Aoufoussi et al., 1992), it can be
written as
x; 1 = a1(d1 − x1)+ a2(x2 −x1) +a3Q1(x1, x3, x4) (14.1)
x; 2 = c1 +a2b1(x1 −x2) +b2(d2 −x2)u (14.2)
x; 3 = a4(d3 − x3)− a5Q2(x1, x3) (14.3)
x; 4 = a4(d4 − x4)+ a5Q3(x1, x3, x4) (14.4)
where x1, x2, x3, x4 are the states that represent, reac-
tor temperature, jacket temperature, benzene concen-
tration and maleic anhydride concentration,
respectively. a2, a2b1 and b2 are the heat transfer co-
efficients of reactor, jacket and reactor wall, respec-
tively. a1, and a4 represent the residence time; a3 and
a5 are kinetic coefficients; d1, d2, d3 and d4 are the inlet
temperature reactor, inlet temperature jacket, inlet
benzene concentration and inlet maleic anhydride con-
centration, respectively. u is the fresh air flow rate.
Finally, Q1(x1, x3, x4) = [DH1R1(x1) =DH3R3(x1)]x3 +
DH2R2(x1)x4 is the heat generation due to chemical
reaction, Q2(x1, x3) =[R1(x1) + R3(x1)]x3 and Q3(x1,
x3, x4)=R1(x1)x3 − R2(x2)x4 are the reaction rates of
benzene and maleic anhydride. For a more detailed
discussion and derivation of the model (14), the inter-
ested reader is referred to the original paper (Aoufoussi
et al., 1992).
Some comments regarding assumptions of section 3
are in order. The assumption (A1) is realistic because
rector temperature can be available in a sampling rate
of the order of 1000 Hz, besides this measuring process
is not expensive. In addition to reactor temperature, x1,
we can suppose that the inlet jacket temperature, d2, is
available. The assumptions (A2) and (A4) are also
realistic because Q2(x1, x3), Q3(x1, x3, x4) and
Q1(x1, x3, x4) are not available for feedback, so that
U(z, u)= a(z, n)+d(z, n)u is unknown. In fact, heat
transfer coefficients a2, a2b1, and b2 can not be known
(for instance, due to encrust in the heat exchange wall).
On the other hand, since the difference (d2 −x2) is
known (via measurements), hence the sign of the esti-
mated value ĝ(z) is known and indicates the directional-
ity of the control actions (this is, the difference between
inlet air temperature d2 and reactor temperature is
larger than zero, because the oxidation of benzene is
exothermic, then the directionality of the control ac-
tions means that the heat generated by the reaction is
removed via the coolant flow) and nominal values of
heat exchange coefficients â2, â2b. 1 and b. 2 can be known
from nominal values. It must be pointed out that
assumption (A2) implies that the relative degree r is
well-defined everywhere on the space state. Concerning
the assumption (A3), Aoufoussi et al. (1992) have
proved that the FBR is a minimum-phase system.
4.2. Robust temperature control of FBR
The system (16) can be transformed by means of
co-ordinates change zi + 1 = y (i ), i= 1, 2, in such way
that it can be written as (4). Let us consider the
transformation (10), (11). Thus the new co-ordinates
z1 = x1 and z2 = a1(d1 − x1)+ a2(x2 − x1)+ a3Q1(x1, x3,
x4) are such that
z; 1 = z2
z; 2 = a(z, 6)+ ĝ(z)u
y= z1 (15)
where a(z, n)= a2[c1 = a2b1(z1 − x2)]+ [d(z, n, t)−a2b2
(d2 − x2)]u+ (a1 − a2)z2 = df(z1, n)/dt, f1(z1, n)=a1
(d1 − z1)− a2z1 = Q1(z1, n), d(z, 6)= [a1b2 −â2b. 2]
(d2 − x2) and ĝ(z)= â2b. 2(d2 − x2). Note that the change
of coordinates depends on uncertain term f(z1, n).
However, recall that this is not important because we
only need to know that such transformation exists.
Let us now define the ‘new state’ h= a(z, n) and ĥ as
its estimated value. In this way, system (14) can be
 R. Femat et al. / Computers and Chemical Engineering 23 (1999) 697–708 703

written as (12) and the linearizing-like feedback control closed-loop characteristic time about 15% of the esti-
law with uncertainties estimator becomes mated characteristic time. On the other hand, since L
can be interpreted as the rate of estimation of uncer-
ẑ; 1 = ẑ2 +Lb*(z
1 1 − ẑ1) Â tainties, L was chosen about ten times the rate of
ẑ; 2 = ĥ+ĝ(z)u+L 2b*(z 2 1 −ẑ1 Ì
) (16.1) nominal convergence of the closed-loop. For simula-
ĥ; = + L 3b*(z
3 1 −ẑ1 ) Å tions, we have chosen the following values of the
controller parameters k1 = k2 = 0.08 and L=0.45.
1 Finer rules of tuning can be used to choose the con-
u= [− ĥ +k1ẑ2 +k2(ẑ1 −x*)] (16.2) troller parameters, however, the above choosing values
ĝ(z) 1

are sufficient to illustrate the performance of the pro-

where x *1 is the set-point (reference temperature). posed control scheme. On the other hand, upper uup
Let eR3 be a vector whose components are defined and lower ulow values of the control input u were chosen
by e1 =L 2(z1 − ẑ1), e2 =L(z2 −ẑ2) and e3 =h − ĥ. as in Kendi and Doyle (1996), namely uup = 1.0 and
Thus, the dynamic of estimation error is represented by ulow = 0.1.
e; = LA(b*)e+ BJ(z, h, n, u), where B is a 3-dimen- In order to simulate the closed-loop system, the
sional vector whose entries are (0, 0, 1), the function estimates values of heat exchange coefficients were cho-
J(z, h, n, u) is given as in Eq. (12) and A(b*) is the sen arbitrarily as follows: â2 = 1.1a2 = 1.54× 10 − 3 and
following 3-dimensional (observer) companion matrix b. 2 = 0.85b2 = 0.118. Controller (15) is evaluated for the
of the coefficients b *%s
i following cases: (a) set-point changes tracking; (b) the
ability of the closed-loop system to reject disturbances;
Æ − b*1 1 0Ç and (c) the controller performance in the presence of
A(b*)= Ã −b*2 0 1Ã (17) measurement noise.
È −b*3 0 0É To evaluate the set point-tracking, the following
simulation was carried out. First a change of − 13 K in
since A(b*) must be Hurwitz, one can choose the the set-point (that is, Tr = 720 K) at t1 = 200 s was
following values b *1 =3.0, b *2 = 3.0 and b *3 =1.0. In induced, thereafter, the initial set-point was set at t2 =
this way, the eigenvalues of A(b*) are all located at 400 s. Fig. 1.a shows the reactor temperature response.
− 1.0. One can see that the control yields good set-point
tracking. In Fig. 1b, the control evolution is displayed.
4.3. Controller performance Note that only in the transition to the new set-point the
controller is saturated.
The performance of the controller (15) is evaluated In order to evaluate the ability of the controller (15)
on the simulation model of the above FBR. The values to reject disturbances, the same set-point changes than
of parameters were taken from Aoufoussi et al. (1992) case (a) were carried out. However, we now consider
(for the sake of completeness the parameters values are the following disturbances: (i) at time t= 100 s, b2
given in the Table 1). The reactor operating point is decrease 15% (i.e. b2 = 0.117). This means that the heat
Tr = 733 K which is an unstable steady-state point. transfer coefficient of the reactor wall is smaller (the
T°c =303 K, y°bz =0.02, y°ma =0.0, where T °, r T°c , y°bz estimate has the same value, i.e. b. 2 = 0.118); and (ii) at
and y°ma are coolant initial temperature, initial fraction t=300 s a periodic perturbation with amplitude of the
mol of benzene and maleic anhydride, respectively. The 10% of the nominal value is induced on the inlet
initial reactor temperature is T °=
r 703 K. The dimen- benzene concentration, that is d*= 3 d3 + 0.1 sin(vt)
sionless mean residence time of the reactor is about (where d3 = 1.0 and v=0.5 Hz). Fig. 2.a shows the bed
710.0 which provides an estimate of the characteristic temperature response. Notice that the controller has a
time of the system. As a rule of thumb, we choose the good set-point tracking despite simulated disturbances
(the inlet benzene concentration as well as heat transfer
Table 1 of the reactor wall). Moreover, the proposed control
Parameters values used for controller evaluation reject the disturbances without excessive control effort.
In the Fig. 2b the control evolution is presented. One
a1 1.40×10−3 b1 1.202×10−1
a2 1.00×10−2 b2 1.388×10−1 can see that the disturbances do not induce saturated
a3 5.457×10−4 c1 2.646×10−1 control actions. Also, notice that the coolant flow rate
a4 6.265×10−1 Eam 1.912×101 increases when the heat transfer decreases.
a5 1.2847×104 kr,1 1.186×10−1 In order to compare the proposed controller with
kr,2 5.25×10−2 kr,3 5.09×10−1
previously reported (Kendi & Doyle, 1996), we simulate
Ea1 1.1626 Ea2 6.747×10−1
Ea3 1.1626 DH1 1.516×106
a large set-point change (of − 25 K at t= 100 s). Fig.
DH2 1.152×106 DH3 2.688×106 3 shows the control dynamics. The performance of the
controller (16) is better. Finally, let us consider the case
704 R. Femat et al. / Computers and Chemical Engineering 23 (1999) 697–708

Fig. 1. Performance of the controller (16). Except at large set-point changes, the control input does not saturate.

where measurements (output) of the bed temperature is
a signal with additive noise (that is, y = x1 =sn ). The
additive noise was simulated with random noise genera-
tion with amplitude of 0.5% which yields 3 K of
measurements error, approximately. Fig. 3 shows the
filtered state z1 (system response) as well as the control
evolution. The ability of the controller to set-point
tracking is not affected by the presence of the measure-
ment noise (Fig. 4). Moreover, despite the simulated
noise amplitude implies a large measurement error, the
effect of the additive noise in the coolant flow is not
important because the linearizing control law (see Eq.
(15)) only makes use of estimated states ẑ1 and ẑ2 which
are filtered by the estimator (16.1).
According with the theoretical analysis, all simula-
tions confirm the stability of the controlled FBR
Moreover, the following general conclusions can be
drawn:
1. When there are not measurements noise nor per-
sistent external disturbances, the estimation error
goes asymptotically to zero and the reactor tempera-
ture converges asymptotically to the desired set-
point.
2. In transient conditions, the absolute value of the
estimation error is bounded.
3. In the presence of measurement noise, prefiltering of
measured signals may be required to diminish ad-
verse effects due to high-gain estimation.
 R. Femat et al. / Computers and Chemical Engineering 23 (1999) 697–708 705

5. Conclusions a dynamic uncertainties compensator whose order is

In this paper, a novel algorithm for asymptotic stabi-
lization is proposed which is robust with respect to
unmodeled dynamics and unmeasured disturbances. An
uncertain change of co-ordinates is used to transform
the system into a canonical form where the robust
stabilization problem is studied as an output feedback
control problem. A feature of the proposed controller is
that uncertain functions were lumped in a ‘new state’
which provides, by means of a Luenberger observer, an
estimate of uncertainties acting in the system. Stability
of the closed-loop system is provided. Our control
design is such that the resulting controller requires least
a priori knowledge of the uncertain functions and it has
lower than compensators resulting from reported adap-
tive algorithms. Another advantage of the proposed
control scheme is that it guarantees robustness against
modeling errors, parametric variations and external
perturbations. Besides, the proposed controller is very
simple and linear.
In particular, the proposed controller was used in a
FBR where oxidation of benzene to maleic anhydride
and carbon oxides is carried out. The oxidation of
benzene to maleic anhydride is highly exothermic, how-
ever, the control scheme does not require knowledge on
heat generation mechanisms. Another source of uncer-
tainty is the heat exchange coefficients, but the pro-
posed controller only requires a nominal value of them.

Fig. 2. Performance of the controller (16) in the presence of external perturbations. The reactor temperature is maintained close to the set-point
despite persistent disturbance.
706 R. Femat et al. / Computers and Chemical Engineering 23 (1999) 697–708

Notice that eRr + 1 is a vector representing scaled

estimation error. From straightforward algebraic ma-
nipulations, it is not hard to see the dynamics of
eRr + 1 are governed by
e; = LM(k)e+ DF2(z, h, N(L)e, 6, u s) (A.2)
where

Æ − b*1 1 0 ··· 0Ç
à −b*2 0 1 ··· 0Ã
M(k)= à — — — ··
· —Ã (A.3)
à − b*r 0 0 ··· 1Ã
È −b*r + 1k 0 0 ··· 0É

D=[0, 0, ... , 0, 1]T Sr + 1, N(L)=diag[L−r, …, L−1, 1],

F2(z, h, n, N(L)e, u) is a continuous function which is
given by
F2(z, h, n, N(L)e, u)
r−1
= % zk + 1 (k U(z, n, u)+ [h+ ĝ(z)u] (r U(z, n, u)
Fig. 3. Comparison between the controller (17) (continuous line) and k=1
previously reported one (dashed line). Note that both controllers
+ (td(z, 6)u+ (n)U(z, n, u)z(z, h, n)
perform quite well, except that the controller by Kendi and Doyle,
(1996) presents slight oscillations in set-point changes. +Sat%( · )C2(z, hn, N(L)e, u) (A.4)

Simulations have shown that the control algorithm
yields good set-point tracking as well as disturbances
rejection, however, in the transition to any new set-
point the controller can be saturated some few seconds.
Finally, it must be pointed out that the applicability
of the proposed controller is not restricted to FBR In
0,
fact, our design can be easily extended to higher dimen-
sional, (partially or fully) linearizable systems such as
heat exchanger, distillation columns and continuous
stirred tank rectors. However, the control problem
associated to the regulation (or set-point tracking) of
chemical systems despite unmodeled dynamics (e.g. ac-
g(z, 6)), then k
1. Then, for
tuator dynamics) is not solved. Results in this direction
will be reported shortly.
Sat%(·) is the derivative of the saturating function
Sat: R“ B, and k= {ĝ(z)− Sat%( · )[g(z, 6)−ĝ(z)]}/
ĝ(z). Note that k can be seen as an uncertain, time-
varying parameter. If we assume that Sat%(·)[0, 1],
then the assumption that ĝ(z)] g(z, 6) and sgn(g(z, 6))
imply that 0 B kB 1 for all t] 0. Note that if F2(·)
then system (A.2) reduces to the nominal dynamics of
estimation error
e; = LM(k)e (A.5)
On the other hand, if there is not uncertainty in the
estimate ĝ(z) (i.e. ĝ(z)
L\ 0 and the assumption that M(1) is Hurwitz Eq.
(12), system e; = LM(1)e is asymptotically stable (e(t)“
Appendix A. Stability results for the resulting
closed-loop system
Stability results of the closed-loop system (10), (13),
(14) (and consequently of the system (4), (13), (14)) are
established. Stability results in this appendix are
strongly based on stability results about output feed-
back stabilization of linearizable systems (Esfandiari &
Khalil, 1992; Teel & Praly, 1991).
Let eRr + 1 whose components are defined by
ej = L r + 1 − j(zj −ẑj ); 1 5j 5r
er + 1 =h −ĥ
0 as t“ ). However, since k is a time-varying parame-
ter, it is not straightforward to establish the stability of
the nominal system (A.S). From a result by Su (1994)
on the stability margin of linear uncertain systems we
can conclude that the linear time-varying system (A.5)
is (globally) asymptotically stable about the origin if the
eigenvalues of M(1) are located at − 1 and 0 B k(t)B1
t] 0. The condition sgn(ĝ(z))=sgn(g(z, 6)) imposed in
the ‘high-frequency’ gain g(z, 6) was used here to assure
the asymptotic stability of the nominal system (A.5)
associated with the estimation error e Rr + 1. Notice
that, if sgn(g(z, n)) is not known a priori, then the
stability (even the time-wise stability) of the system
(A.5) can not be established. Assumption (A.4) is a very
demanding one, however it is commonly taken in most
adaptive control schemes (Kristić et al., 1992). The
(A.1) sgn(g(z, n)) is related with the directionality of the
 R. Femat et al. / Computers and Chemical Engineering 23 (1999) 697–708 707

control action, which in several chemical process is not z; i = zi + 1, 15 i5 r− 1

hard to establish a priori. The arguments above only
prove the nominal stability of the estimation error
e Rr + 1. The dynamics of e  Rr + 1 are coupled to the
dynamics of the system states (x, n)  Rn in the following
form
z; i = zi + 1, 15 i5r− 1
z; r = h+ĝ(z)u s0(z, h)+ ĝ(z)[u s0(z, h) −u s(z, h, N(L)e)]
6; =z(z, 6)
where u s0(z, h)=u s(z, h, 0). Notice that if e= 0, system
(A.6) is reduced to the nominal controlled system with
state feedback
z; r = h+ ĝ(z)u s0(z, h)
6; = z(z, n) (A.7)
By assumption, the system is globally minimum-phase.
Also, u s0(z, h) is a saturated version of a globally
defined stabilizing state feedback. Let W¦ Rn + r + 1 be
a compact set of initial conditions. It is well known
result that the nominal system (A.7) can be made
(A.6) semiglobally asymptotically stable about the nominal
equilibrium point just by adjusting the upper, uup, and
lower, ulow, bounds of the saturating function Sat: R“
B such that W is contained in the region of attraction
V of the system.

Fig. 4. The performance of the controller (16) in the presence of measurement noise. This simulations shows that the controller (16) presents
low-pass filtering properties.
708 R. Femat et al. / Computers and Chemical Engineering 23 (1999) 697–708
The above arguments show only that the nominal
systems (A.5) and (A.7) are globally and semiglobally
asymptotically stable, respectively. However, the actual
closed-loop system is given by (A.2), (A.6) in which the
dynamics of (z, n)Rn and e  Rr + 1 are coupled. In this
way, there is not a Separation Principle for the closed-
loop system, such that stability of nominal systems
(A.5) and (A.7) does not imply stability of the closed-
loop system (A.2), (A.6). Fortunately, from recent theo-
retical results on the stability of feedback linearizable
systems under the action of a high-gain observer-based
output feedback (Teel & Praly, 1991; Esfandiari &
Khalil, 1992), the stability of the closed-loop system
(A.2), (A.6) can be established.
From the assumption that both u s0(z, h) and u s0(ẑ, ĥ)
are globally bounded controllers and the continuity of
F2(z, h, n, N(L)e, u) with respect its arguments, we have
that
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