Observer-Based Robust Control of a Continuous Bioreactor with Heterogeneous Community

International audience; This work addresses the problem of robust control of the continuous bioreactor-namely the chemostat-using an observer-based approach. We design a control law aiming to regulate the growth of a certain species and to stabilize the output-a growth-associated product of interest-in a prescribed level. In addition, to avoid the single-species dogma (which takes only one species into account for control design), we add to the microbial community unknown species competing for the limiting substrate. Finally, this control architecture is able to maintain the productivity, despite this competing heterogeneity (or biodiversity) of the community.