Robust controller design for a nuclear power plant using H∞ optimization

This paper presents an application of H_∞-optimal control to a nuclear power plant. Data from a pressurized heavy water reactor as well as actuator models incorporating nonlinearities were provided for this study by a nuclear agency. Starting with the identification about the nominal operating point to the final controller validation by studying responses for set point changes and disturbance rejection, a detailed description is presented. The normalized coprime factorization approach is adopted to synthesize the H_∞ controller