Iterative learning control for a fedbatch lactic acid reactor

This paper presents an iterative learning control (ILC) strategy for a fed-batch lactic acid fermentation process. One of the important features of the proposed approach is that it uses only a few off-line output measurements, circumventing the well known drawback of insufficient online measurement capability in many in situ fermentation control applications. Since a zero-order hold input policy is shown to lead to misleading control results, the key technique was to generate the control profile with a piecewise continuous functional basis. Simulation results are presented to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed ILC strategy.