Development of an Extended State Observer for Monitoring of a PWR Based on a Two-Point Kinetic Model

Accurate estimation of unmeasured system states and disturbances in a pressurized water reactor (PWR) is essential for effective control, operation optimization, and safety monitoring. To this end, this paper investigates the estimation of unmeasured system states and disturbances of the PWR system during load-following operation. First, a mathematical model for the PWR system is established based on the two-point kinetics equations with one equivalent delayed neutron precursor group. Subsequently, an extended state observer (ESO) integration scheme, incorporating two coupled ESOs, is constructed to estimate unmeasured system states, including relative density of delayed neutron precursor, average fuel temperature, total reactivity, xenon concentration, and iodine concentration, along with time-varying disturbances, with the use of measurements of the PWR system only. According to the Lyapunov stability theorem, it is proved that the estimation error dynamic of the proposed ESO integration scheme is uniformly ultimately bounded stable. Finally, simulation results confirm that the proposed ESO integration scheme provides higher estimation accuracy and stronger robustness against measurement noises, model uncertainties, and external disturbances compared to both a high-gain observer and a high-order sliding mode observer.