Enhancing Inland Navigation by Model Predictive Control of Water Levels: The Cuinchy-Fontinettes Case

Abstract

Navigation canals are used for transport purposes. In order to allow safe navigation the water level should be kept in a certain range around the Normal Navigation Level (NNL). The water level is disturbed by known and unknown inputs, like tributaries, municipal water flows, rain, etc. Some of these inputs can be used to control the water level. If the geometry requires it, canal reaches are connected by locks. The operation of these locks sometimes can disturb the water level, if the difference between the upstream and downstream water level is large. The objective is to minimize the disturbances caused by these lock operations on the water level in order to maintain the NNL. In this work the global management of the canal reach is discussed and an option to maintain the NNL by active control is introduced. Some inputs to the system, such as other confluences or gates on the side of the locks, can be controlled automatically to react to the disturbances caused by the lock operations using model predictive control to maintain the desired water level.

The parallel approach to issue of operational management optimization problem on transport gateway system

“…In [13] presented the current state of a simulation tool dedicated to the design of control elaborate methods from the automatic control domain. In work [14] the global management of the canal reach is discussed. It is worth noting that, the modern information technologies use has a huge role in the shipping management.…”

Model predictive control and moving horizon estimation for water level regulation in inland waterways

“…This technique was also employed in [3], using a coalitional approach to find the best compromise between communication costs and control performance for irrigation canals. The combined water supply and navigability of river systems was tackled using MPC in [4,5]. A nonlinear economic MPC was designed in [6] for water distribution networks, aiming at minimizing the economic costs associated to water treatment and pumping.…”

Input-Delay Model Predictive Control of Inland Waterways Considering the Backwater Effect

“…A methodology for the optimal management of combined water supply and navigability in river systems based on MPC was detailed in [8]. Another MPC approach linking transport of and transport over water was presented in [9] and tested in a navigation reach that belongs to the inland waterways network in the north of France. An extended subsystem of the same network, which featured a reach with a distributary, was considered in a decentralized predictive scheme in [10].…”