A novel data-driven model for prediction and adaptive control of pH in raceway reactor for microalgae cultivation.

This work proposes a new data-driven model to estimate and predict pH dynamics in freshwater raceway photobioreactors. The resulting model is based purely on data measured from the reactor and divides the pH dynamics into two different behaviors. One behavior is described by the variation of pH due to the photosynthesis phenomena made by microalgae; and the other comes from the effect of CO2 injections into the medium for control purposes. Moreover, it was observed that the model parameters vary throughout the day depending on the weather conditions and reactor status. Thus, a decision tree algorithm is also developed to capture the parameter variation based on measured variables of the system, such as solar radiation, medium temperature, and medium level. The proposed model has been validated for a data set of more than 100 days during 10 months in a semi-industrial raceway reactor, covering a wide range of weather and system scenarios. Additionally, the proposed model was used to design an adaptive control algorithm which was also experimentally tested and compared with a classical fixed parameter control approach.

Teaching Control during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

This paper aims to analyze some different solutions that were adopted in control education activities during the pandemic. The authors of this paper are educators in the control education field from different countries on all the continents, who have developed a questionnaire with the idea of collecting data about the COVID-19 pandemic impact on the control education activities. The main objective is to study the diverse alternatives that were used worldwide to perform the online educational activities during that period, such as methodologies, tools, learning management systems (LMS), theoretical exercises, laboratory experiments, types of exams, simulators, software for online lecturing, etc. As a result, comparisons between pre-and during-pandemic educational resources and methods are performed, where useful ideas and discussions are given for the control education community.