Automatica, Vol. 28, No.

5, lap, 873-883, 1992

Printed in Gr eat Britain.
0005-1098/92 $5.1]0 + 0.00
Pergamon Press Lid
1~) 1992 International Federation of Aut omat i c Control
Modelling and Adaptive Control of Nonlinear
Distributed Parameter Bioreactors via
Orthogonal Collocation*
D. DOCHAI N, t ~t J. P. BABARY[ I and N. TALI - MAAMAR[ [
Adapt i ve linearizing control can be synthesized f or distributed paramet er
bioreactors based on an orthogonal collocation approximation model and
its simulation perf ormance can be shown to be effective.
Key Words--Distributed parameter systems; nonlinear systems; orthogonal collocation; biotechnol-
ogy; adaptive control.
Abstract--This paper deals with the control of fixed bed
bioreactors. The dynamics of these processes are described
by a nonlinear distributed parameter model. In a first step,
the partial differential equations of the model are reduced to
ordinary differential equations by using an orthogonal
collocation method. A nonlinear adpative controller is then
designed, which is based on the nonlinear discretized model.
Its performance is illustrated by simulation results on a fixed
bed anaerobic waste water treatment process.
1. INTRODUCTION
OVER THE LAST f ew decades, t her e has been a
growi ng and wi despr ead devel opment of in-
dustrial bi ot echnol ogi cal processes. The oper a-
t i on in St i r r ed Tank React or s ( STR) has been
( and is still) a wi del y used t echnol ogy in
f er ment at i on processes. But , mor e and mor e,
ot her t echnol ogi es ar e consi der ed f or bi opr oc-
esses oper at i on, such as fl ui di zed bed, packed
bed or ai r lift r eact or s, whi ch pr es ent several
advant ages over t he "cl assi cal " STRs (e. g.
Schtirgerl, 1989; Moser , 1988). For i nst ance,
hi gher cell mass, mor e efficient pr oduct ext rac-
tion and hi gher flow r at es ar e of t en ment i oned as
advant ages of fl ui di zed and packed bed bi oreac-
tors. Typi cal exampl es ar e fl ui di zed or packed
* Received 7 February 1990; revised 29 January 1991;
revised 26 September 1991; received in final form 8 February
1992. The original version of this paper was not presented at
any IFAC meeting. This paper was recommended for
publication in revised form by Associate Editor A. Bagchi
under the direction of Editor P. C. Parks.
$ Laboratoire d'Automatique, Dynamique et Analyse des
Syst~mes, Universit6 Catholique de Louvain, B~itiment
Maxwell, Place du Levant 3, 1348 Louvain-La-Neuve,
Belgium.
1: Chercheur qualifi6 FNRS, Belgium.
To whom correspondence should be addressed.
II Laboratoire d'Automatique et d'Analyse des Syst~mes
du CNRS, 7, avenue du Colonel Roche, 31077 Toulouse,
France.
8 7 3
bed anaer obi c di gest ers (e. g. Poncel et et al.,
1985; Poncel et , 1986) and et hanol pr oduct i on
with al gi nat e ent r apped yeast s (e. g. Williams
and Munnecke, 1981).
In t he cont ext of t he moni t or i ng and cont r ol of
f er ment at i on processes, t he use of fixed bed
bi or eact or s i nt r oduces new met hodol ogi cal
pr obl ems t o be sol ved. The behavi our of t hese
r eact or s ar e t hen expect ed t o be mor e l i kel y in
plug flow condi t i ons t han in compl et el y mi xed
ones. And, strictly speaki ng, t hei r dynami cs
cannot be descr i bed by or di nar y di fferent i al
equat i ons ( ODEs ) as in STRs, but by part i al
deri vat i ve equat i ons ( PDEs ) . Ver y f ew paper s
have been concer ned in t he l i t er at ur e with t he
cont r ol of di st r i but ed pa r a me t e r bi or eact or s,
with t he not abl e except i on of Lut t ma n et al.
(1985) (see also Isaacs et al., 1986) f or t he case
of an air-lift bi or eact or . Maendeni us et al. (1987)
also consi der t he cont r ol of a packed bed
bi or eact or (in cascade with a Cont i nuous STR
( CSTR) ) , but t hey t r eat ed it as a CSTR, whi ch
seems fai r in t hat appl i cat i on wi t h r espect t o t he
small size of t he bi or eact or . In this paper , we
shall concent r at e on fixed bed bi or eact or s, whi ch
present s t he fol l owi ng charact eri st i cs: t he act i ve
bi omass is kept wi t hi n t he vessel and t he
di fferent subst rat e(s) and pr oduct ( s) flow
t hr ough it. Fur t he r mor e , diffusion phe nome nons
will be consi der ed her e as negligible. The
di st ri but ed par amet er model of t he pr ocess will
t hen be const i t ut ed of fi rst -order hyper bol i c
PDEs .
Ther e are basically t wo di f f er ent appr oaches
to t r eat t he cont r ol of di st r i but ed par amet er
systems (e. g. Ray, 1981). In t he first one, t he
cont rol design is based on t he di st r i but ed
874 D. DOCHAIN et al.
paramet er model and then eventually reduced to
a finite dimension control solution. However ,
the usually very large uncertainty on the
knowledge about the kinetics of fermentation
processes (due to the high complexity of
processes involving living organisms) renders this
approach questionable in practice. Therefore we
made up our mind for a second approach, the
early lumping: in a first step, the PDEs are
reduced to ODEs by using orthogonal colloca-
tion and in a second step, the finite dimension
ODEs are considered for the control design.
The objective of this paper is to propose
control algorithms for fixed bed bioreactors,
which are based on the reduced nonlinear
ordinary differential equation system. The
central question we address in this paper is to
suggest how to extend the application of
adaptive linearizing control schemes to nonlinear
distributed paramet er bioprocesses. In that
sense, we believe that our paper is a maybe
modest, but yet very important, step towards the
extension of the very promising adaptive
linearizing control strategies to processes of
higher and higher practical importance and
complexity. We shall concentrate here on the
regulation of one out put , i.e. of one component
concentration at the out put of the bioreactor.
The performance of the controller will be
illustrated on a typical case of application:
anaerobic waste t reat ment process. The design
of the proposed control schemes is in line with
recent works on the control of STR bioreactors
(Dochain and Bastin, 1984; Dochain, 1986;
Bastin and Dochain, 1990) and presents the
following basic features: it is based on the
well-known nonlinearities of the process and is
adaptive in order to deal with the paramet er
uncertainty. An important section is dedicated to
the modelling of the dynamics of fixed-bed
bioreactors in absence of diffusion. The pro-
posed model fits into the General Dynamical
Model framework introduced in Bastin and
Dochain (1990) for Stirred Tank Bioreactors.
The paper is organized as follows. Section 2
introduces the distributed paramet er dynamical
model of fixed bed bioreactors. Its reduction to
ODEs by orthogonal collocation is present ed
and discussed in Section 3. Section 4 is dedi cat ed
to the design of an adaptive linearizing control
law. In Section 5, the performance of the
adaptive controller is illustrated by simulation
experiments.
2. DYNAMI C AL MODE L OF F I XE D B E D
B I OR E AC T OR S
Let us consider a fixed bed bi oreact or (Fig. 1)
in which m biochemical reactions with n
t F
FIG. 1. Sc he ma t i c vi ew of a fi xed bed r eact or .
components t ake place. Among these reactants,
nl are micro-organisms ent rapped or fixed on
some support and which remain within the
reactor, and n2 ot her component s (essentially
substrates and products) flow through the
reactor. For simplicity, we also consider the
cross-section of the bi oreact or to be constant and
equal to A. From mass balance considerations
and under the assumptions that diffusion is
negligible, we can deduce, in line with the
general model formulation in Bastin and
Dochain (1990), the following dynamical model:
cafg, = g , ~ ( ~ , , ~ 2 ) , ( 1 )
9 t
a~2= F a~2
- - - - + ( 2 )
3t A 0z
following boundary conditions:
~2(t, z = 0) = ~2.i,(t).
above equations, ~1 is the
with the
(3)
In the biomass
concentration vect or ( d i m~ l =n l ) , ~2 is the
other component s concentration vect or (dim ~2 =
n 2 ) , ~2, i n( t ) is the influent concentration of ~2
(which is different from zero only for external
substrates), ~(_~1, ~2) is the reaction rate vect or
(dim ~ = m), K1 and/ ~2 are the yield coefficient
matrices (dim/~1 = nl x m; dim K 2 = n 2 X m), F
the hydraulic flow rate and z is the space
variable (z e ]0, HI).
Remark. It is well known (e.g. Hol mberg, 1982;
Bastin and Dochain, 1990) that, in bioprocesses,
the reaction rates 9, which represent the kinetics
of the process, are generally nonlinear, but also
often badly known and ill-defined, functions of
the state of the bioreactor.
A simple example
Consider a bioreactor with two reactions
described by the schemes below:
(1) an autocatalytic growth reaction with one
limiting substrate S and one biomass
population X:
S --~X, (4.a)
Modelling and control of distributed par amet er bioreactors 875
(2) a deat h reaction of t he micro-organisms:
X ~ Xd, (4.b)
where X o is t he non-active biomass
concentration.
If we assume that the non-active micro-
organisms leave t he bioreactor, t he dynamics of
the above process will dear l y be described by
the equations (1) and (2) with:
~ = X , ( 5 . a )
= I S T , ( 5 . 6 )
~2,in = [Sin 0] T, (5. C)
= [/.JX k d X ] T, ( 5 . d )
where /~ is the specific growth rate, kd is the
death coefficient and kt is a yield coefficient.
3. REDUCTI ON OF THE DI STRI BUTED
PARAMETER MODEL TO ORDI NARY
DI FFERENTI AL EQUATI ONS
It is clear from the above model (1), (2) that
the state variables ~1 and ~2 are functions of
time and space, i.e. ~l(t, z) and ~2(t, z). We
shall now see how to approximate the PDEs of
each component of ~ and ~2 by a finite number
(equal to p + l ) of ODEs at p + l discrete
spatial positions along t he bioreactor. There
exist several met hods to reduce the above PDEs
to ODEs (e.g. Ray, 1981). They consist of
expanding the variables as a finite sum of
products of time functions and space functions.
In t he orthogonal collocation met hod (e.g.
Villadsen and Stewart, 1967; Villadsen and
Michelsen, 1978), the state variables will be
written as follows:
p +l
~a(t, z ) = ~ f l i ( z ) ~ l a ( t ) , (6.a)
j =0
p + l
~2(t, z ) = ~ f l j ( z ) ~ 2 a ( t ) , (6.b)
j=o
where ~la(t) and ~2,j(t) are t he value of ~ and
~2 at some discrete spatial positions (called
collocation points) along the bioreactor, i.e.:
~la(t) -- ~l.j(t, z = zj), (7.a)
~2d(t) = ~z, i (t , z = z j ) , (7.b)
and the basis functions f l j ( z ) are chosen as
orthogonal functions (e.g. Lagrange poly-
nomials), such that:
{~ if i = j
flj(Z~) = if i =/:j"
The integer p in equation (6) corresponds to the
number of interior collocation points, z = Zo and
z = zp+l corresponds to t he input (z = 0) and the
output (z = H) of the bioreactor. The choice of
the orthogonal collocation met hod for t he space
discretization of the fixed bed bioreactor model
has been dictated by two main reasons. First of
all, this met hod is largely used and accepted in
chemical engineering (e.g. Georgakis e t a l . ,
1977; Jensen and Ray, 1982; Jorgensen, 1986)
for the reduction of dynamical models of tubular
reactors (which presents great similarities with
the same kind of processes used in biotechnol-
ogy). Secondly, orthogonal collocation is known
to be an efficient and powerful reduction
method. Villadsen and Michelsen (1978) have
shown that the collocation met hod and the
Galerkin met hod (often considered as the best
approximation met hod) will give similar results if
some precautions are t aken for the implementa-
tion of the first one (calculation of quadrat ure
points with a formula including a weight function
W ( z ) = z P( 1 - z)% and for which t here exist an
optimal choice). And at the same time, t he
collocation met hod offers the advantages that its
implementation is easier and that the nat ure and
dimension of the state variables remain un-
changed after the reduction procedure (in our
case, the state variables will remain concentra-
tions in the discrete ODE model). Moreover, it
has been shown that orthogonal collocation
methods preserves mass balances (e.g. Cho and
Joseph, 1983).
Now we can write t he partial derivative of ~2
with respect to z appearing in equation (2) as
follows:
, 9 ~ 2 P X ~ I d f l j ( z )
= L':'o ( 8 )
Let us note:
b , j = d E ( z = z , )
d z ( 9 )
By introducing (6)-(9) into equations (1)-(3),
each PDE is t ransformed into p + 1 differential
equations at t he p interior collocation points and
at the output of the reactor. We obtain the
following ODEs system of order n ( p + 1):
d x 1
dt = K l q g ( X l ' x 2 ) ' (10)
dx2= - - - ; + F~ + Kz q o ( x l , x2), (11)
dt 2' t
876 D. DOCHAIN et al.
wi t h
[ ~ 1 , ]
~ 1 , 2
X l = . ,
~ l , p + l
[ ~ ( ~ I , I , ~ 2 , 1 ) 1
q g ( X l ' X 2 ) ~ - - - [ ~ ( ~ 1 ' 2 ' ~ 2 ' 2 ) 1 '
t - { ~ ( ~ l , p + l , ~ 2 , p + l) J
g , o . . . . . . o l
0 /'(l 0 " - " 0
J
K 1 ~ . . . . . ;'
0 0 . . . . . . /{1
g2 o . . . . . . 0 - I
0 K2 0 - ' . ..o /
. : ,
o o LJ
B = [Bo]ia=,top+l wi t h
e b?
FR = ~ ~2 in(t)
wi t h /;i = d i a g { - b ~ o } , i = l t o p + l ,
K 2 --~
~ 2 ,1 1
X 2 : ~ 2 , 2 ,
~ 2 , p + 1 . . I
B/j = di ag {bq},
a nd t he f ol l owi ng d i me n s i o n s f or t h e di f f e r e nt
ve c t or s a nd mat r i ces :
di m (~i) = ni (p + 1);
di m (Ki) = ni ( p + 1) m( p + 1),
di m q~ = m( p + 1);
di m (Bij) = di m ( bi ) = n2 n2.
i = 1 , 2 ,
A simple example (continued)
Co n s i d e r t he e x a mp l e o f Se c t i on 2 ( b i o r e a c t o r
wi t h gr owt h a nd d e a t h r e a c t i ons ) . As a ma t t e r o f
i l l ust r at i on, l et us s e e h o w t he r e d u c e d mo d e l
will l o o k l i ke in t he s i t ua t i on wh e r e onl y t wo
i nt er nal c ol l oc a t i on poi nt s a r e c o n s i d e r e d
( p = 2). Le t us first de f i ne t he v a l u e s o f t h e
c o n c e n t r a t i o n o f X, S a nd Xa a nd o f t he speci f i c
gr owt h r a t e # at t he c ol l oc a t i on poi nt s a n d at t h e
r e a c t o r o u t p u t z; (i = 1, 2, 3):
X i = X ( z = z i ) , S = 5 ( 2 ~ = z i ) , X d . i ~ - X d ( Z = Z i ) ,
U i = u ( X i , S i , X d , i ) .
No t e al s o t hat he r e :
F
Bl l B12 B13 1
g = / B 2 1 B 2 2 B 2 3 /
LB31 B32 B33_1
"bl l 0 b12
0 bl l 0
b21 0 b22
0 b2t 0
b31 0 b32
0 b31 0
m
-b,0 0"
0 blo
F b2o 0
F ~ = - ~
0 b2o
b3o 0
0 b3o
m
si nce Xa, i. = 0 f r om
0 b13 0 -
b12 0 b13
0 b23 0
b22 0 b23
0 b33 0
b32 0 b33
[ Si. ] = F b 2 o ] S i n
Xa,i.-I - - A 0 I
b3o I
0 I
D
t he b o u n d a r y c ondi t i ons .
Th e n t he r e d u c e d O D E s o f t h e pr oc e s s will b e
e qua l t o:
d [ X l]
x2
X3
i
1 - 1 0 0 0 i ]
= 0 0 1 - 1 0
0 0 0 0 1 -
m
$1
X d 1
dt Xa,2
F
A
F
A
"~ , x T I
k d X , I
#2X2 I
kdX2 I '
/ A 3 X 3 [
k d X 3 /
0
b21
0
b31
0
blo
0
b2o
0
b3o
~ 0
0 b12 0 b13 0"
b . 0 baz 0 b13
0 b22 0 b23 0
b21 0 b22 0 b23
0 b32 0 b33 0
b31 0 b32 0 b33
.
" & "l
X d , l [
Xd2l
S31
X a , d
Modelling and control of distributed paramet er bi oreact ors 877
"_.kl
0
0
+
0
0
0
m
Remarks
0 0 0 0 6
1 0 0 0 0
0 - k I 0 0 0
0 0 1 0 0
0 0 0 - k l 0
0 0 0 0 1
. m
].~ 1X1
k d Xl
# 2 K2
kdX2
3X3
kdX3
(a) It is obvious that the choice of the basis
orthogonal function and of the number and
position of the collocation points can be a
critical question in the procedure of reducing
the PDE to ODE. This mat t er will be
further discussed along with the simulation
experiments in Section 5 (see also Babary et
al., 1991).
(b) It is worth to not e the similarity bet ween the
reduced model of fixed bed bioreactors and
the General Dynami cal Mode l of stirred tank
bioreactors present ed in Bastin and Dochai n
(1990), the main differences lying in the
reaction rate vect or (which is now of
dimension m( p + 1)) and the presence of the
matrix B.
4. THE CONTROL ALGORI THM
4.1. St at ement of the cont rol pr obl em
We shall concent rat e in this paper on the
control of the concentration of one component
at the out put of the bioreactor, under the
following conditions:
(C1) The flow rate F is the control input;
(C2) The concentration of the controlled com-
ponent is measured not only at the out put
of the bi oreact or but also at each interior
collocation point, and at the reactor input
(in case of an external substrate);
(C3) The yield coefficients are positive, constant
and unknown;
(C4) m l -< m reaction rates are unknown;
(C5) The system (10), (11) is minimum phase
(Byrnes and Isidori, 1985; Isidori, 1989).
Let us denot e y the concentration along the
reactor of the component which has to be
controlled, y,. the value of y at the collocation
points z =z,- and Y the value of the controlled
component (at the react or output):
yi = y ( z = z~) i = l t o p ,
Y = y ( z = zp+t )
Then, by definition, we can write Y as a linear
combination of the state variables xt and x2, or
equivalently as a linear combination of the
component concentration x2 at the out put
position Zp 1:
Y a - c T [ X l ] , ( 1 2 . a )
LX2J
~.. T
- - C2 ~2,p+l- (12.b)
The dynamical equation of the out put Y is
readily obtained from (11), (12):
dY F F T ~
d--t = - . . CTBx2 + A C2b.+l~:2,in
"]- CIK2(P(~I,p+I, ~2, p+l ) - (13)
It is straightforward to check that the t erm
CTBx2 is a linear combination of only the
variables Yi at the different collocation points z,.
By considering condition C4, the last term of the
above equation can be rewritten as follows:
CT cp
= K21~1 + K22~2
- - ' K21I ' J r - [ 0 2 " ' " Om_m,+l][2,1''" (P2,m_m,+l] T
= 0T$, (14.a)
where ~1 and ~2 contain the unknown and
known reaction rates, respectively, and 0 and
are then equal to:
0 T= [K21@~, 02 . . . . . 0,,-,,,,+1], (14.b)
$ r = [1, @2a, - . , @2,,,-,n,+1], (14.C)
i.e. 0 contains all the unknown parameters.
Therefore, the out put dynamical equation
takes the following form:
d Y F CTBx 2 F -
d--7 = - A + A CTb"+*tJ2"" + 0To" (15)
Equation (15) is the basis for the derivation of
the controller.
4.2. Adapt i ve linearizing cont rol al gori t hm
Assume that the control obj ect i ve is to have a
desired closed loop dynamics equal to the
following linear first-order equation:
dY
d t = A(Y* - Y), ). _> 0, (16)
where Y* is the desired value of Y. This
objective can be achieved by implementing the
following model reference linearizing control law
(see e.g. Bastin and Dochain, 1988, 1990), which
is readily obtained by combining equations (15)
and (16):
F - - A )'(Y* - Y) - 0 r 0
c T~p +l ~2 , i n - - CTBx 2 . (17)
From Conditions C3 and CA, the paramet ers 0
are assumed to be unknown: we shall then
AUTO 28:5-B
878 D. DOCHAIN et al.
estimate them via some adaptation schemes, e.g.
a least squares estimation algorithm with a
forgetting factor ), (e.g. Bastin and Dochain,
1990):
dqJ
- - = - t o w + q), (18.a)
dt
dqJ - t oqJ o+ t o y + F T- F
d----t-= A C2bp+l~2'in- CTBx2'
(18.b)
dO
d---t = r w ( Y - qJ0 - qJ +0) , ( 18. c)
dF
d--~ = -FqjWTF + yF, F(0) > 0, 0 < ), - 1.
(18.d)
The adaptive version of the linearizing control
equation is then equal to:
F = A ~'(Y* - T) - OTq)
+ - . ( 1 8 . O
C 2 b p + l ~ 2 , i n - - Cr Bx2
Co mme n t . The above adaptive linearizing con-
trol algorithm (18) is in line with similar adaptive
linearizing control schemes (e.g. Bastin and
Dochain, 1988) for which theoretical stability
properties have been emphasized.
5, SIMULATION RESULTS
Simulation experiments have been performed
on the example present ed above. Assume here
that we wish to control the substrate concentra-
tion S at the output of the bioreactor, i.e.
Y = Sp+l. Its dynamics is equal to:
dSp+l =
bp+,,oS~. + ~ bp+, , iS, j
d t A i=l
- k d z p +l Xp +, , (19)
with ~up+~ =/~(Xp+~, Sp+a). The linearizing con-
trol algorithm (17) is here written:
A~, ( S * - St,+, ) + k d h , +, X p +,
F (20)
p + l
- b p + l , 0 S i n - E b , + x , i S i
i=1
Assume also that the deat h paramet er kd is
known (e.g. from some batch experiments), and
that the yield coefficient k~ and the specific
growth rat e/ ~ are unknown. In this example, let
us further introduce the following definitions.
(1) =
where p,+~ is an unknown positive function
of the bioreactor state (this definition only
implies, in accordance with the physical
reality (there is no growth without substrate,
see t he above reaction scheme), that
/Up+l =0 if Sp+l =0) (see also Bastin and
Dochain, 1990).
(2) The auxiliary variable Z = S, +] + k , X , + l .
The dynamical behaviour of Z is given by:
d Z F bp+l , 0Si n + Z bp+l,iSi
dt A i=1
- k d ( Z - Sp+I). (21)
With the above definitions of p and Z, t he
output dynamical equation is t hen equal to:
[ ]
dSp+, = _ - - F bp+l oSi. + ~'~ bp+l,iSi
dt A ' i=1
- - s +o. ( 22)
The adaptive version of the control scheme (20)
is then given by:
F = a Z( S* - Sp+~) + ~Sp ~( Z - Sp+l), (23)
p + l
-bp+l,oSin - E bp+l,iSi
i=1
where the estimate of pp+~ is updat ed by t he
least squares algorithm (18a-d) and Z is
estimated by using the dynamical equation (21),
i.e.:
dZ F [ p + l ]
d--7 = -~-[bp+x. 0Si. + ~--~a bp+,,iSi
- kd(Z -- Sp+, ). (24)
The adaptive controller (18), (23), (24) is
schematized in Fig. 2. It has been i mpl ement ed
on the above example. The paramet ers of t he
system have been based and derived from a fixed
bed anaerobic digestion pilot plant (Guiot e t al . ,
1988). Here the substrate concentration is t he
organic mat t er concentration expressed in COD
(Chemical Oxygen Demand) units and X is the
concentration of active biomass (in VSS
(Volatile Suspended Solids) units).
In the simulations, the paramet ers have been
set to t he following values:
A = 0 . 0 2 m 2 , H= l m, k1=0. 4,
kd = 0.05 h -1.
For simulation purposes, we have chosen a
FIG. 2. Scheme of the closed loop system.
Modelling and control of distributed paramet er bi oreact ors 879
Contois model for the specific growth rate #:
#m~S
# =
K c X + S '
with #max = 0.35 h -1 and Kc = 0.4.
As been pointed out in Section 3, the choice
of appropriate basis orthogonal functions and
number and position of the p interior collocation
points is a very important question in the
reduction procedure of the distributed paramet er
model. As a mat t er of fact, a certain number of
papers deal with that subject (e.g. Georgakis e t
a l . , 1977; Wysocki, 1983; Babary e t a l . , 1991).
For instance, Wysocki (1983), in his paper on
first order hyperbolic systems (i.e. the kind of
equations we deal with in this paper) suggests
choosing the collocation points as the zeros of
Legendre polynomials. Moreover, his conclu-
sions are that three or four interior collocation
points are sufficient for the simulation and
control of these systems.
In our simulations, we have been testing
different solutions. Following Michelsen and
Villadsen (1972) and a number of applications
(e.g. Hariri, 1985), the Lagrange orthogonal
polynomials, which are assumed to be reliable
and are easy to comput e, have been chosen as
the orthogonal basis functions. The collocation
points have been chosen as the zeros of Jacobi
polynomials P( p~' O) ( z) (of which the Legendre
polynomial is a particular case) (see also
Michelsen and Villadsen, 1972). The Jacobi
polynomials can be comput ed by using the
following recursive expression:
P~"t 3)(z ) = [ z - g , ( a , /3, n ) ] P ( , ~ ) ( z )
- h , ( o 6 / 3 , n ) P ~ O z ) ( z ) n = 1 to p,
with
0, / 3>- 1, P_a( z) =O, Po ( z ) =l , ha=O,
h n - -
(n - 1)(n + a ~ - 1)(n +/3 - 1)(n + a~+ fl - 1)
( 2n+ a ' + f l - 1)(2n + t r + / 3 - 2)2(2n + t r + / 3 - 3) '
for n > l
1 [ a' 2-/ 32 ] f o r n > O.
g , = ~ 1 ( 2 n + ~ + ~ 1 ) 2 _ 1 ,
Different values of the paramet ers a and /3 of
the Jacobi polynomial, and different number of
collocation points have been considered. From
this study, we found out that the best choice of a
and/ 3 is:
a = O, / 3=4.
Moreover, from the many simulations we have
been performing, we also found out that, with
the above choice of er and/ 3, a number p = 4 of
0.8.5-
0.3
0. ~
0.2
S (gCOD/I)
~1~ 1 ..
~ j (ii) : ct = l$=2
I~.~ ~ ' ~ ( i i i ) : o ~ = O , 13 = 4
0
time (h)
1 ~6 . 3 .
80
Op e n l oop s i mul a t i on wi t h di f f er ent a a n d b.
interior collocation points is sufficient for
correctly simulating the process and that larger
values of p do not significantly improve the
quality of the simulations. The simulation study
in open loop is summarized in Fig. 3, which
shows one typical simulation experiment, i.e. the
response of the system to a step of the influent
substrate concentration Sin (from 5 to 6g l -a) at
time t = 5 h, for three different sets of values of
tr and r :
(i): te = fl = 0 (Legendre polynomial)
(ii): a~ = 2, fl = 2
(iii): t r - - 0, fl = 4 (the best choice).
We have also compared the orthogonal colloca-
tion approximation with a finite difference
method, an also often used reduction met hod
where the time and space derivatives are
approximated by finite differences:
a t A t ' O z A z
As pointed out in the literature (e.g. Goodson
and Polls, 1978), in order to have a satisfactory
accuracy, a high number of discretization points
may be necessary when using finite difference
approximation which may then require excessive
comput er time. This phenomenon has been
observed here: we had to go up to 500 space
discretization points in order to obtain a
behaviour which tends to l ook as good as the
one obtained by the orthogonal collocation
met hod, and this resulted in an increase of
computer time larger than one order of
magnitude. The results with the finite difference
met hod for three values of space discretization
points (N = 50, 200, 500) and corresponding to
the same simulation experiment shown in Fig. 3
are shown in Fig. 4.
From this exhaustive simulation study, we
decided, for bot h the simulation of the process
and the controller design, to use the orthogonal
collocation met hod with the Jacobi polynomial
880 D. DOCHAIN e t al.
0 . 4
0 . 3 5
0. 3
0 . 2 5
S (gCOD/1)
t ,..,
I
N=200
N=500
0 . 2 t ~
o ' ~b ~o ~o so
t i me ( h)
FIG. 4. Op e n l oop s i mul a t i on wi t h a fi ni t e di f f er ence
a ppr oxi ma t i on.
for t he above avalues of or, fl and p (0~ = 0,
f l = 4 , p =4) . The four i nt eri or col l ocat i on
points are t hen pl aced at t he fol l owi ng spatial
positions:
z~ = 0.31213, z2=0. 5789, z3 = 0.81289,
z4 = 0.9627.
The values of t he par amet er s bi/ are expressed
hereaft er:
[ b i j ] i = 1 t o 5 , j = 0 t O 5
"--0.42276
0.07134
= -0. 02323
0.00986
-0. 01429
B
The initial
- 5. 53249 11.9772
-1. 17311 - 3. 77846
0.28574 -1. 95405
- 0. 11059 0.59899
0.15738 - 0. 82149
-13. 95651 21.36328
9.34809 - 11. 33316
-4. 51751 13.27289
-3. 35601 -14. 97153
4.04364 -40. 36524
si mul at i on
- 13.42872-
6.86530
- 7. 06384
17.82928
37
condi t i ons have been
chosen so as t o correspond t o a st eady-st at e:
Sin(0 ) = 5 g COD I-~,F(0) = 2 1 h -'
Xl (0) = 29.4026gVSS I-~, S, (0) = 1. 9602gCOD 1-'
X2(0) = 13.2069 g VSS 1- t, S:(0) = 0.8805 g COD l -
Xd0) = 6.5457 g VSS 1-~, $3(0) = 0. 4364g COD 1-1
X4(0) = 4.1758 g VSS 1- ~, $4(0) = 0.2784 g COD l -
Xd0) = 3.734 g VSS 1-1, S5(0) = 0.2489 g COD V ~.
In Fig. 5, t he cont rol l er ( 20) , (25) has been
i mpl e me nt e d under t he f ol l owi ng i ni ti al condi -
ti ons and design par amet er s:
S * = $ 5 ( 0 ) , 3. =2, ~5( 0) =0. 181gCOD- ~h -1,
2( 0) = 1.59 g COD 1 -~
0. 3
0.28
0 . 2 6
0.24
0. 2
0.003
0 . 0 0 2 5
0 . 0 0 2
0. 0015
S ( g COD/ I )
AS i n
0 ~ ' ' IQ0 ~10
t i me ( h )
F ( m 3 / h )
100 '
time(h)
0.22
0.21 l
0. 2
0 . 1 9
0. 18 -
0.17
0
a ( l / g COD/ h )
t i me ( h )
1.9-
1.8"
1.7"
1 . 6 -
1. 5
1.4
z (g COD/D
Y
t i me ( h )
d
Fr o. 5. Ad a p t i v e cont r ol of a f i xed bed bi or eact or .
Modelling and control of distributed paramet er bi oreact ors 881
( \ g C O D / l ) t = 0 : _ - -
" * ~ t=40 :+++
* , t "\X -- t - - 250 :
/ i = J i i J
0 0.2 0.4 0 . 6 0 . 8 1
z (m)
FIG. 6. Spatial repart i t i on of t he subst rat e concent r at i on S.
0 . 2 5 1
l
S (gCOD/I)
" 1 P l r e g u l a t o r :
/
A d a p t i v e l i n e a r i z i n g c o n t r o l l e r : - - -
0 . 2 5 1
0 . 2 4 9 -
0 . 2 4 5 t
0 . 2 4 7 [ , , , , , , , , ,
o ~o ~o
tim e(h )
FiG. 8. Compari son wi t h a PI regul at or.
This choice corresponds to a 10% error on the
initial values of bot h Z and p. Figure 5 shows a
simulation experiment in which the reference
out put S* has been set to 0.26 g COD 1-1 at time
t = 24 h, and a ramp of the disturbance input Sin
has been applied bet ween time t = 99h and
t = 100 h from 5 to 6 g COD 1-1. The controller
proves successful t o drive the system t o the new
steady state and to compensat e the effect of the
disturbance, this in spite of wrong initial values
for the paramet er p and the auxiliary variable Z.
The wrong initialization explains the variation of
the out put $5 from the its desired value S* at the
beginning of the simulation. Not e that, because
of the on-line estimation scheme, the closed-loop
behavi our does not exhibit a first-order dynami-
cal behavi our (as in the "i deal " (non-adaptive)
situation of equation (16)) but a second-order
one with damped oscillations.
In Fig. 6, the spatial repartition of the
substrate concentration S(t, z) along the react or
is shown at three different instants ( t =
0, 40, 250 h).
We have tested the robustness of the adaptive
control law in presence of uncertain paramet er
values. Figure 7 shows one typical simulation
0.3 1 S (gCODB) 1
0.28 ASin
_ _ i
0.24
!
0.22 ] , , , , . . . . .
0 I00 200
tim e(h )
PIG. 7. Robust ness of t he adapt i ve cont r ol l er wi t h respect t o
model inaccuracies.
experiment where a wrong value for the deat h
paramet er kd (kd = 0.06, i.e. a 20% error) has
been introduced in the control algorithm (while
the other simulation conditions are those of Fig.
5). Not e the excellent performance of the
adaptive controller in presence of this model
uncertainty, which is very close to the one of
Fig. 5.
We have also compared our control algorithm
with a simple classical PI regulator which
computes the value of the influent flow rate F
from the regulation error (S*-Sp+O at the
reactor out put and which is characterized by the
following transfer function:
Hpi(S) = Kp 1 +
where s is the Laplace variable. Figures 8 and 9
show the performance of the PI when a ramp of
the disturbance input Sin is applied bet ween time
t = 39 h and t = 40 h from 5 to 6 g COD 1-1. We
have not ed that, although reasonable sets of
design parameters have been considered, the
performance of the PI may be degrading quite
easily (Fig. 8; Kp =0. 1, T~ =2 ) and that the
system can even be led to instability (Fig. 9,
0.3"
s (gCOD/l)
0.28
0.26 . : : ~ , j . . . ~
v~.,:':~
0.$4 t
0 1 0 0 2 0 0
tim e(h)
FIG. 9. Compari son wi t h a PI regulator: unst abl e behavi our.
882 D. DOCHAIN et al.
Kp = 0 . 1 5 , T/ = 0 . 8 ) . Thi s s hows t ha t a car ef ul
c ont r ol des i gn ba s e d i n pa r t i c ul a r on t he
we l l - known nonl i ne a r a nd di s t r i but e d p a r a me t e r
f eat ur es o f t he bi opr oc e s s ma y i mp r o v e sig-
ni fi cant l y t he c ont r ol p e r f o r ma n c e .
Acknowledgements--This work has been initiated during the
4 month stay (from March to June 1989) of D. Dochain as
"chercheur associ6" of the CNRS (France) at the LAAS,
which is gratefully acknowledged. The authors would also
like to thank Dr M. Perrier, Prof. S. B. Jorgensen and Prof.
A. Munack for stimulating comments about this work.
6. CONCLUSIONS
I n t hi s p a p e r , we deal t wi t h t he c ont r ol o f
fi xed bed bi or e a c t or s . Th e mode l l i ng a nd c ont r ol
desi gn has c o n c e n t r a t e d o n fi xed b e d b i o r e a c t o r s
in t he a bs e nc e o f di f f usi on ef f ect s. A ge ne r a l
dyna mi c a l mo d e l f or fi xed be d bi or e a c t or s has
be e n i nt r oduc e d. Re d u c t i o n of t he di s t r i but e d
p a r a me t e r mo d e l t o o r d i n a r y di f f er ent i al e qua -
t i ons has b e e n p e r f o r me d by usi ng an o r t h o g o n a l
col l ocat i on me t h o d . Th e r es ul t i ng dyna mi c a l
mode l has s e r ve d as a basi s f or t he des i gn o f an
a da pt i ve c ont r ol a l gor i t hm whi ch is b a s e d o n t he
we l l - known nonl i ne a r s t r uc t ur e of t he mo d e l a n d
do not r equi r e a ny a p r i o r i k n o wl e d g e f or t he
pr oces s ki net i cs. Th e c ont r ol p e r f o r ma n c e has
be e n i l l ust r at ed a nd di s cus s ed t h r o u g h s ever al
s i mul at i on e xpe r i me nt s . I n par t i cul ar , its pe r f or -
ma nc e has b e e n c o mp a r e d wi t h t hos e o f a
cl assi cal PI .
I t is wo r t h not i ng t ha t t he a p p r o a c h p r o p o s e d
in t hi s p a p e r can be easi l y e x t e n d e d t o o t h e r
t ypes o f di s t r i but ed p a r a me t e r bi or e a c t or s ( ai r
lift bi or e a c t or s ( e. g. Lu t t ma n et al . , 1985) a nd
f l ui di zed b e d r e a c t or s ( t he e xt e ns i on is st r ai ght -
f or wa r d if t he b e d por os i t y e is a s s u me d t o be
cons t ant ; see Ponc e l e t , 1986)) a n d t o bi or e a c t or s
whe r e t her e exi st l ongi t udi nal di f f usi on ef f ect s
(see e. g. Mos e r , 1988; Lu t t ma n et al . , 1985).
Bes i des , it is wel l k n o wn t ha t di s t r i but e d
p a r a me t e r r e a c t or s ma y exhi bi t a n o n - mi n i mu m
p h a s e dyna mi c a l be ha vi our . I n o r d e r t o deal wi t h
t hat p h e n o me n o n , t he p r o p o s e d c ont r ol l aw ma y
a p p e a r t o be uns t abl e a nd a modi f i e d ver s i on of
t he l i near i zi ng c ont r ol l aw has t o be i nt r oduc e d.
I n Ba b a r y et al. ( 1990) , we ha ve p r o p o s e d t o
modi f y it in a wa y whi ch is i n l i ne wi t h o t h e r
cl assi cal wor ks on t he c ont r ol o f n o n - mi n i mu m
pha s e s ys t ems ( e. g. Cl a r ke , 1984). As a ma t t e r
o f f act , t he c ont r ol l e r des i gn is t h e n b a s e d o n t he
mi ni mi zat i on, wi t h r es pect t o t he i nput F, of t he
f ol l owi ng cos t f unct i on:
J = {(Y* - Yt+~) - , k( r * - lit)}
+ q { F t - F t _ l } 2, q>--O.
No t e t ha t it is exact l y t he Ge n e r a l i z e d Mi n i mu m
Va r i a nc e ( GMV) c ont r ol l e r if ). = 0 ( e. g. Cl a r ke ,
1984 and ( f or an a ppl i c a t i on t o n o n l i n e a r
bi ochemi cal s ys t ems ) Do c h a i n a nd Bas t i n, 1984)
and t ha t it r e duc e s t o a di s cr et e- t i me ver s i on o f
t he c ont r ol l e r (17) if q = 0.
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