Fault-Tolerant H∞ Control for Topside Separation Systems via Output-Feedback Reinforcement Learning

The topside separation system is an important device installed on offshore oil exploration platforms for the treatment of produced water. Due to its operation in high-moisture and salt-infested environments, the system is susceptible to valve malfunctions. Additionally, the presence of strong couplings and slugging disturbances in the system further complicate the development of fault-tolerant control (FTC). To achieve this, this article investigates the fault-tolerant H∞ control problem in the topside separation system. To recover control performance against actuator faults while reducing disturbance sensitivity, the fault-tolerant H_∞ control problem is formulated for the topside separation system and is expressed as a two-player differential game problem. A Nash equilibrium solution to the fault-tolerant H_∞ control problem is derived by solving the game algebraic Riccati equation (GARE). Considering the tailor-made property and difficulty in full-state sensing in industry, an output feedback reinforcement learning (RL) algorithm is proposed to implement the fault-tolerant H_∞ control method without the need for system dynamics. Simulation studies are performed to verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.