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Online monitoring of fermentation processes is a necessary task to determine concentrations of key biochemical compounds, diagnose faults in process operations, and implement feedback controllers. However, obtaining the signals of all-important variables in a real process is a task that may be difficult and expensive due to the lack of adequate sensors, or simply because some variables cannot be directly measured. From the above, a model-based approach such as state observers may be a viable alternative to solve the estimation problem. This work shows a comparative analysis of the real-time performance of a family of sliding-mode observers for reconstructing key variables in a batch bioreactor for fermentative ethanol production. These observers were selected for their robust performance under model uncertainties and finite-time estimation convergence. The selected sliding-mode observers were the first-order sliding mode observer, the proportional sliding mode observer, and the high-order sliding mode observer. For estimation purposes, a power law kinetic model for ethanol production by Saccharomyces cerevisiae was performed. A hybrid methodology allows the kinetic parameters to be adjusted, and an approach based on inference diagrams allows the observability of the model to be determined. The experimental results reported here show that the observers under analysis were robust to modeling errors and measurement noise. Moreover, the proportional sliding-mode observer was the algorithm that exhibited the best performance.

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In this paper, a systematic procedure for controller design is proposed for a class of nonlinear underactuated systems (UAS), which are non-feedback linearizable but exhibit a controllable (flat) tangent linearization around an equilibrium point. Linear extended state observer (LESO)-based active disturbance rejection control (ADRC) is shown to allow for trajectory tracking tasks involving significantly far excursions from the equilibrium point. This is due to local approximate estimation and compensation of the nonlinearities neglected by the linearization process. The approach is typically robust with respect to other endogenous and exogenous uncertainties and disturbances. The flatness of the tangent model provides a unique structural property that results in an advantageous low-order cascade decomposition of the LESO design, vastly improving the attenuation of noisy and peaking components found in the traditional full order, high gain, observer design. The popular ball and beam system (BBS) is taken as an application example. Experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed approach in stabilization, as well as in perturbed trajectory tracking tasks.