A decentralized volume variations observer for open channels (Q1861699)

A linear model of open channels enabling the design of a decentralized volume variations observer is derived. The proposed observer enables us to implement decentralized constant volume controllers under the realistic assumption of non-measurable state. The main advantage of this approach is that each state variable may be reconstructed on the base of only local measurements, thus not diminishing the advantage of decentralization in the controller. Since the fundamental property, which must be retained for all possible perturbations of the plant, is stability of the feedback system, this paper studies whether a given decentralized controller, applied in conjunction with the proposed observer, is robust when output multiplicative perturbations occur due to the low frequency approximations and to the variations with respect to the reference configuration of uniform flow.