Adaptative interval observer with application to the estimation of biofuel production by microalgae

In this paper, the design of an interval observer with an adaptive dynamical gain is presented. The observer is formulated in the framework of robust state estimation of uncertain dynamical systems, where an interval that encloses the unknown state variables is provided. Here the observer is based on a change of coordinate that involves a time varying gain. We introduce a dynamics for the gain, whose trajectory converges toward a predefined optimal value (which maximizes the convergence rate of the observer). The observer performance is illustrated with the estimation of microalgal oil in the framework of biofuel production. The proposed observer design, when applied to experimental data of Isochrysis affinis galbana, appears to be a suitable robust estimation technique.