Autoencoder-Based Reduced Order Observer Design for a Class of Diffusion-Convection-Reaction Systems

The application of autoencoders in combination with Dynamic Mode Decomposition for control (DMDc) and reduced order observer design as well as Kalman Filter design is discussed for low order state reconstruction of a class of scalar linear diffusion-convection-reaction systems. The general idea and conceptual approaches are developed following recent results on machine-learning based identification of the Koopman operator using autoencoders and DMDc for finite-dimensional discrete-time system identification. The resulting linear reduced order model is combined with a classical Kalman Filter for state reconstruction with minimum error covariance as well as a reduced order observer with very low computational and memory demands. The performance of the two schemes is evaluated and compared in terms of the approximated L2 error norm in a numerical simulation study. It turns out, that for the evaluated case study the reduced-order scheme achieves comparable performance with significantly less computational load.