Dynamical observers for parabolic equations with spatial point measurements

Abstract

An exponential Luenberger dynamical observer is proposed to estimate the state of a general class of nonautonomous semilinear parabolic equations. The result can be applied to the case where the output is given by state measurements taken at a finite number of spatial points, that is, to the case where our sensors are a finite number of delta distributions. The output injection operator is explicit and the derivation of the main result involves the decomposition of the state space into a direct sum of two oblique components depending on the set of sensors. Simulations are presented as an application to the Kuramoto--Sivashinsky models for flame propagation and fluid flow.