Nonlinear and robust control of PDE systems. Methods and applications to transport-reaction processes (Q701545)

This book presents control methods for some partial differential equations of hyperbolic and parabolic types containing possibly nonlinear terms and which are assumed to be well-posed. The two cases are extended to perturbed situations, and robustness issues are addressed. Singular perturbation methods and tools inspired from feedback linearization commonly used in the finite-dimensional case are employed. The author deals with distributed controls and measurements and looks for stability (or boundedness in the perturbed cases) and tracking. Singular perturbations model the perturbations or the gap between a finite-dimensional approximation (an ODE with slow motion), and the remaining modes are assumed to be fast. This second case necessitates the use of inertial manifolds. Feedback linearization is used before discretization (the formulas for the feedback involve the operators and an index mirroring the relative degree of the finite-dimensional case) in the hyperbolic case and after discretization (Galerkin's method) in the parabolic case. The inertial manifolds appear in this parabolic case, and when perturbations are added the inertial manifolds associated to an assumed slow motion have to be approximated. The development is illustrated with applications from the chemical industry throughout the book (reactor, chemical vapor deposition, crystal growth). The concrete aspect of this book is its strength, and it may inspire theoreticians in the control of PDEs so that they realize that design methods in the finite-dimensional case have interesting extensions in their area; it may encourage practitioners, giving them confidence in dealing with PDEs.