Model reference sliding mode control for bioreactor benchmark problem

Process engineering is an interesting field for control researchers as the problems are based on the physics and chemistry of continuously operating and nonlinear phenomena. Oftentimes the models of processes are nonlinear and are composed of few differential equations displaying a rich set of responses. This paper considers the sliding mode control of a biochemical process within the context of model reference control. The considered process was introduced as a benchmark process displaying several challenges making it an interesting test bed. The cell mass of the process is desired to follow the output of a first order reference model, and a sliding mode controller is designed to observe the model following property. The results demonstrate that the system responds quickly and converges accurately towards what is prescribed.