Active disturbance rejection control for the ALSTOM gasifier benchmark problem

A new control solution based on a unique active disturbance rejection control (ADRC) paradigm is proposed for the ALSTOM gasifier control problem. In the new control method, the disturbances, including unknown dynamics and external disturbances to the system, are treated as an augmented state that is estimated and then eliminated in real-time. A first-order ADRC scheme for the ALSTOM gasifier is designed. The simulation results show that the new control method is superior to the PI solution by Simm and Xue in terms of the integral of the absolute error of gas pressure disturbance tests at 0% load, the no-overshoot peak value of the gas temperature and the short time for the bed mass to return to the set point during a ramping test, and the ability to reject large coal quality disturbances.