Damping Feedback Stabilization of a Wastewater Treatment Plant

This paper considers the problem of stabilizing a wastewater plant using damping feedback controller. The nonlinear model used is the AM1 anaerobic digestion model. The proposed approach consists in using a damping state feedback controller that renders a desired equilibrium stable through feedback. We first construct an approximate dissipative potential function centered at the desired equilibrium for the drift system. Then, a damping feedback controller is computed based on the Jurdjevic–Quinn approach. Through numerical simulations, we show that the resulting controller stabilizes the desired equilibrium, and keeps the pollutant at the desired level when input disturbances are applied to the system.