Gaussian process modeling of macroscopic kinetics: a better-tailored kernel for Monod-type kinetics

Abstract

In bioprocesses, it is important to model the kinetics of the macroscopic rates of reactions since these are required to catch the dynamical aspects of a process. In [Wang et al. 2020], a modeling method involving Gaussian processes has been developed, using a kernel especially designed for the modeling of Monod-type kinetics (activation, inhibition, double component, neutral effect). However, as will be illustrated in this paper, when the number of training data is limited or the metabolite concentration data do not have large variations (which is generally the case for real-life data), this kernel can yield inaccurate models for the kinetics. In this paper, we develop a new kernel better tailored for the modeling of Monod-type kinetics and we show that it has good modeling performances in the case of a limited number of data. The idea is to use the particular structure of Monod-type functions in the design of the kernel, i.e., we incorporate prior knowledge in the modeling.