PC environment for simulation and parameter estimation of distributed parameter systems

This paper describes the interfacing of the simulation software DSS/2 and the optimization program OPTDES in order to build a PC environment for simulation and parameter estimation of dynamical systems with distributed parameters. The efficiency of these FORTRAN software tools is illustrated by a furnace modelling study. The nonlinear partial differential equations of the model are discretized by the finite-difference method and the orthogonal collocation on finite elements, and the simulation results are compared. It is shown that the use of differential-algebraic solvers to handle the boundary conditions and an effective grid point selection lead to a significant reduction of the result equations. The unknown model parameters are estimated from experimental data by minimizing an output least-square error criterion with a hybrid sequential quadratic programming-generalized reduced gradient algorithm.