Model Predictive Control of an Experimental Water Canal

• Author(s): Silva, Pedro ; Botto, Miguel ; Figueiredo, João ; Rijo, Manuel
• Date: 2007
• Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10174/3256
• Origin: Repositório Científico da Universidade de Évora
• Subject(s): Model predictive control; canal water level control; Saint-Venant equations; fault tolerant control
• Document Type: Article
• Language: English

Description

This paper presents the first experimental results of a model predictive controller designed to control the water levels of a modern automated water canal, located at the University of Évora, Portugal. The controller is able to correctly handle known-in-advance water offtakes, while considering the most relevant physical constrains of the experimental setup. The dynamic model used is based on discretized Saint-Venant equations linearized for the steady-state regime taking into account the hydraulic structures present, such as gates and a water offtakes valves. The controller is implemented on a PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) network supervised by a SCADA (Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition) system. The experimental results demonstrate the reliability and effectiveness of the proposed control scheme in real-life typical situations, including gate malfunctioning and extreme water offtake conditions.