Robust Tracking Control of Boiler-Turbine Systems

This paper proposes a novel robust output feedback controller to regulate the output electric power of a nonlinear boiler-turbine system. The suggested approach is based on the robust mixed-µ-synthesis and the uncertain linear representation of the boiler-turbine system. Based on the real data, the system is linearized around a practical operating point and the practical ranges of the uncertainty terms are chosen. Besides the output electric power, the pressure and the water level are also regulated to be in the desired range. The developed approach offers an outline procedure to design a linear output controller, which is robust against the boiler-turbine uncertainties and external disturbances. To assess the robust performance of the designed controller, several scenarios with constant and time-varying references and different disturbance inputs are given.