Observability and Controllability Analysis of Pipeline Systems

Pipeline systems are widely applied in the areas of power, chemistry and petroleum. Model-based leak detection methods for the pipeline systems get more and more attentions. Among these model-based methods, the state observer and state feedback based methods are usually used. While the observability and controllability are prerequisites in using these methods. In this paper, the observability and controllability of the pipeline systems are analyzed. The pipeline systems are modeled as distributed parameter systems and the hyperbolic PDEs are established. The theorem is proposed to determine the observability and controllability of the systems without calculating the rank of observability and controllability matrices. An illustrative example is provided to show the validity and effectiveness of the results.