Observer-enhanced distributed moving horizon state estimation subject to communication delays

• A distributed state estimation approach accounting for communication delays explicitly.
• Provable convergence and ultimately boundedness of estimation error.
• An application example to a chemical process with extensive simulation results.

In this work, we focus on distributed moving horizon estimation (DMHE) of nonlinear systems subject to time-varying communication delays. In particular, a class of nonlinear systems composed of subsystems interacting with each other via their states is considered. In the proposed design, an observer-enhanced moving horizon state estimator (MHE) is designed for each subsystem. The distributed MHEs exchange information via a shared communication network. To handle communication delays, an open-loop state predictor is designed for each subsystem to provide predictions of unavailable subsystem states (due to delays). Based on the predictions, an auxiliary nonlinear observer is used to generate a reference subsystem state estimate for each subsystem. The reference subsystem state estimate is used to formulate a confidence region for the actual subsystem state. The MHE of a subsystem is only allowed to optimize its subsystem state estimate within the corresponding confidence region. Under the assumption that there is an upper bound on the time-varying delays, the proposed DMHE is proved to give decreasing and ultimately bounded estimation error. The theoretical results are illustrated via the application to a reactor–separator chemical process.