Disturbance observer based sliding mode control for a continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR)

A continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR) is typical of equipment found in the process control industry. The dynamics represent a wide class of second order nonlinear systems and thus as well as having specific industrial application, control of the CSTR is frequently used as a benchmark problem for application and testing of new control algorithms. Due to the high complexity of the CSTR system, the robust control design problem is challenging. This paper first establishes a mathematical model of the system. A disturbance observer is then designed to estimate the disturbance and a corresponding asymptotically stable sliding mode control is developed. Stability analysis is presented in terms of the Lyapunov method. Finally, based on experimental data, the proposed method is validated using simulation experiments.