Controllability and Observability of a Large Scale Thermodynamical System via Connectability Approach

This study presents a new approach to determine the controllability and observability of a large scale nonlinear dynamic thermal system using graph-theory. The novelty of this method is in adapting graph theory for nonlinear class and establishing a graphic condition that describes the necessary and sufficient terms for a nonlinear class system to be controllable and observable, which equivalents to the analytical method of Lie algebra rank condition. The directed graph (digraph) is utilized to model the system, and the rule of its adaptation in nonlinear class is defined. Subsequently, necessary and sufficient terms to achieve controllability and observability condition are investigated through the structural property of a digraph called connectability. It will be shown that the connectability condition between input and states, as well as output and states of a nonlinear system are equivalent to Lie-algebra rank condition (LARC). This approach has been proven to be easier from a computational point of view and is thus found to be useful when dealing with a large system.