Flatness-based disturbance observer for condition monitoring of marine power generation units

Abstract

The article proposes a flatness-based disturbance observer for condition monitoring of the integrated power generation system, which comprises a marine turbine and a synchronous generator. It is proven that this power generation system is differentially flat, thus it can be transformed into an input–output linearized form and into the canonical Brunovsky form. For the linearized state-space description of the system, state estimation can be performed with the use of Kalman Filtering (derivative-free nonlinear Kalman filter). Moreover, by re-designing the Kalman filter as a disturbance observer, it becomes possible to estimate disturbances, model uncertainty terms and fault-induced perturbations that affect the power unit. Consequently, model inconsistencies and faulty conditions in the functioning of the marine power unit can be diagnosed.