Sampled-Data Control of the Stefan System

Abstract: This paper presents results for the sampled-data boundary feedback control to the Stefan problem. The Stefan problem represents a liquid-solid phase change phenomenon which describes the time evolution of a material's temperature profile and the interface position. First, we consider the sampled-data control for the one-phase Stefan problem by assuming that the solid phase temperature is maintained at the equilibrium melting temperature. We apply Zero-Order-Hold (ZOH) to the nominal continuous-time control law developed in [23] which is designed to drive the liquid-solid interface position to a desired setpoint. Provided that the control gain is bounded by the inverse of the upper diameter of the sampling schedule, we prove that the closed-loop system under the sampled-data control law satisfies some conditions required to validate the physical model, and the system's origin is globally exponentially stable in the spatial $L_2$ norm. Analogous results for the two-phase Stefan problem which incorporates the dynamics of both liquid and solid phases with moving interface position are obtained by applying the proposed procedure to the nominal control law for the two-phase problem developed in [30]. Numerical simulation illustrates the desired performance of the control law implemented to vary at each sampling time and keep constant during the period.