Gain scheduled subspace predictive control of a pressurized water-type nuclear reactor

This work presents a methodology for designing subspace-based gain scheduled predictive controller for nuclear reactor power control. The main idea is to design a family of predictive controllers directly from measurements and integrate them without employing any explicit process model. The developed controller incorporates the robustness feature of subspace identification with the adaptive capability of gain scheduling in a predictive control set-up. The controller is designed to handle process variations effectively. The efficacy of the proposed controller is demonstrated for load-following transients using a simulated model of a PWR-type nuclear reactor. Simulation results show that the proposed strategy is effective in addressing the load-following control problem of a non-linear parameter-varying PWR nuclear reactor system.