Experimental design for parameter estimation of two time-scale model of photosynthesis and photoinhibition in microalgae

A method for parameter estimation of two time-scale model of photosynthesis and photoinhibition is presented.The model structure coincides with the earlier mechanistic concept of photosynthetic factory by Eilers and Peeters, however, our formulation respects the decomposition of the phase-space into the fast phase xAxA, and the slow one, xBxB. The experimental design for model parameters estimation is based on three complementary measurements. In addition to the standard measurement of microbial kinetics, identifying three of five model parameters, two time dependent experiments are proposed. The first one resides in photoinhibition measurement under constant irradiance (identifying the slow system dynamics), and the second one is based on periodic piecewise constant input. It is shown how to set up the input signal in order to maximize the sensitivity to the fast dynamics parameter.