Enhancement of practical applicability of optimal control of a nonlinear process

This paper makes a step towards practical applicability of the optimal control for industrial penicillin production. Using the nonlinear gradient method as the key optimization tool, two ways of measurement feedback incorporation into the optimization procedure are proposed. Firstly, the receding horizon approach (whose linear variant is widely spreading in the field of operation of various industrial processes) is investigated considering different lengths of optimization horizon. Secondly, the shrinking horizon approach inspired by the character of the solved task with terminal criterion is examined. In order to make the latter comparable to the receding horizon approach, various sampling periods of the input signal are considered. Utilization of the nonlinear continuous time model of the controlled process clearly distinguishes this paper from the earlier publications. The behavior of both approaches is tested on a set of numerical experiments with the focus on performance under constrained computational resources. The obtained results demonstrate the superiority of shrinking horizon approach and its strong computational restriction resistance.