IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology
arXiv

This paper addresses the possibility of using robust control theory for preventing earthquakes through fluid injections in the earth’s crust. The designed robust controllers drive aseismically a seismic fault to a new equilibrium point of lower energy by tracking a slow reference signal. The control design is based on a reduced-order nonlinear model able to reproduce earthquake-like instabilities. The designed controllers generate a continuous control signal to stabilize the tracking error despite the presence of uncertainties related to the frictional and mechanical properties of the underlying physical process and external perturbations. The developed controllers are tested extensively and compared on the basis of numerical simulations and experiments in the laboratory. The present work opens new perspectives for the application of robust nonlinear control theory to complex geosystems, earthquakes and the production of renewable energies.