Robust regulation of anaerobic digestion processes

This paper deals with the problem of controlling anaerobic digestion processes. A two-step (i.e. acidogenesis-methanization) mass balance model is considered for a 1 m(3) fixed bed digester treating industrial wine distillery wastewater. The control law aims at regulating the organic pollution level while avoiding washout of biomass. To this end, a simple output feedback controller is considered which regulates a variable strongly related to the Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD). Numerical simulations assuming noisy measurements first illustrate the robustness of this control procedure. Then, the regulating procedure is implemented on the considered anaerobic digestion process in order to validate and demonstrate its efficiency in real life experiments.