Variable measurement structures for the control of a tubular reactor

The feasibility of the variable measurements structure is investigated within the framework of controlling a tubular chemical reactor. An on-line sequential analysis of the temperature measurements along the length of the reactor, allows a fast and time-adaptive selection of the best measurements to be used in a low order, simple and robust control scheme. The approach has been developed for both static and dynamic cases. It is based on a recursive computation of the state estimate errors. Its theoretical and computational simplicity makes it attractive for on-line implementation. The procedure has been applied for the adaptive tubular reactor under pseudo-steady state and dynamic conditions with very encouraging results.