A Robust Nonlinear Adaptive Control for Control of Nuclear Reactor

This paper presents a nonlinear dynamic inversion based Model Reference Adaptive Control (MRAC) for nuclear reactor power control. A point kinetics model of a Pressurized Water Reactor with parameter uncertainties in thermal feedback coefficients and bounded reactivity disturbance is considered. The parameter uncertainties and disturbances are estimated based on certainty equivalence principle. Stability and boundedness of closed loop signals is verified through Lyapunov theory. Robustness of MRAC is improved with projection based modification. Finally, the efficacy of proposed adaptive controller is verified through nonlinear simulation studies.