Sharif Digital Repository

Fuel cells belong to an avant-garde technology family for a wide variety of applications including micro-power, transportation power, stationary power for buildings and other distributed generation applications. The first objective of this contribution is to find a suitable reduced model of a Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC). The derived reduced model is then used to design a state estimator. In the first step, the distributed model of the SOFC that is derived using the first principle balance equations is solved by the method of lines. Since this model is too complex and sluggish for real-time applications, a representation of this model with lower number of states and good accuracy is needed.... 

As an integral part of a hybrid control system for Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) processes, a dynamical hybrid observer is proposed for online reconstruction of the active mode and continuous states of these processes. Hybrid systems feature both continuous and discrete-event dynamics and hence are very suited to describe PSA processes. For estimation of the active mode, a mode observer is designed, and the continuous spatial profiles in each mode are estimated by distributed and decentralized Kalman filters. The proposed hybrid observer has been applied, in silico, for a two-bed, six-step PSA process used for Hydrogen purification. The active mode of the process along with the continuous... 

In this paper, a non-isothermal model of natural gas in pipelines including mass, momentum and energy balance equations are used as model equations for modeling and state estimation in gas pipeline systems. It is shown that differential equations describing the dynamic behavior of a high-pressure and long-distance gas transmission network (GTN) can be solved efficiently using the orthogonal collocation method. The issues corresponding to the presence of discontinuities in the dynamic model is substantially discussed and studied. The non-isothermal model of a GTN can experience discontinuities during transient operations, which causes challenges in simulation and state estimation in this... 

This paper aims to develop a boundary control solution for complicated gantry crane coupled motions. In addition to the large angle sway motion, the crane cable has a flexural transverse vibration. The Hamilton principle has been utilized to derive the governing partial differential equations of motion. The control objectives which are sought include: moving the payload to the desired position; reducing the payload swing with large sway angle; and finally suppressing the cable transverse vibrations in the presence of boundary disturbances simultaneously. These simultaneous boundary control objectives make the problem challenging. The proposed control approach is based on the original... 

In this paper, a framework for distributed and decentralized state estimation in high-pressure and long-distance gas transmission networks (GTNs) is proposed. The non-isothermal model of the plant including mass, momentum and energy balance equations are used to simulate the dynamic behavior. Due to several disadvantages of implementing a centralized Kalman filter for large-scale systems, the continuous/discrete form of extended Kalman filter for distributed and decentralized estimation (DDE) has been extended for these systems. Accordingly, the global model is decomposed into several subsystems, called local models. Some heuristic rules are suggested for system decomposition in gas pipeline... 

A continuous-discrete Distributed and Decentralized Switching Kalman Filter (DDSKF) is designed for estimation of spatial profiles in Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) processes. The introduced observer is an integral part of the control strategy of hybrid systems in general and PSA systems in particular. A reduced order model is developed based on the mechanistic model of the process. The sensors are optimally located and observability of the process is studied. The proposed observer is used to estimate the spatial profiles of various states of a two-bed, six-step PSA system used for production of pure H2 from a H2–CH4 gas mixture. The spatial profiles of the system have been estimated using... 

In this paper, boundary control (BC) laws are designed to find a BC solution for a single-link nonlinear vertical manipulator to suppress the link’s transverse vibrations and control the rigid body nonlinear large rotating motion. The governing equations of motions and boundary conditions, which all consist of a set of PDEs and ODEs have been derived based on the Hamilton principle. It is desired to regulate large angular orientation, suppress the flexible link’s transverse vibrations and compensate the boundary disturbance simultaneously. The amount of elastic boundary vibration has remained within the constraint range. By considering novel Barrier-Integral Lyapunov functional in order to...