Is It Better to Use Gate Opening as Control Variable than Discharge to Control Irrigation Canals?

Abstract

Centralized model predictive controllers are common in water systems. The control action variable can be the discharge, and the subsystems (canal pools) are modeled separately. This paper focuses on short canal pools where the interactions are stronger between canal pools. Could this procedure be better if gate openings were used as control action variables and the interconnected system were modeled for the controller? Model predictive controllers (MPCs) were developed using the discharge and the gate opening as control action variable and tested experimentally using the laboratory canal of the Technical University of Catalonia. It was found that for centralized MPCs for short canal pools, the use of gate opening as control action variable is more beneficial than discharge. Another additional advantage is that in this way it is possible to put constraints on the gate opening and the change of gate opening, which are important to the limitations of the physical system.

A two-layer control architecture for operational management and hydroelectricity production maximization in inland waterways using model predictive control

“…Water levels in inland waterways can be adjusted using gates. While several variables can be used as manipulated inputs, e.g., openings, elevations and flows [33], discharge is considered as the control variable in this work. These components have upper and lower operating bounds…”

Modeling and control in open-channel irrigation systems: A review

“…Finite Differences Lemos et al 2009, Feng and Wang 2011, Shang et al 2011, Soler et al 2013a, Breckpot et al 2013, Soler et al 2013b, Bonet et al 2017, Cen et al 2017ID Ke et al 2018black-box Model Litrico et al 2007, Begovich et al 2007, Feliu-Batlle et al 2009a, Feliu-Batlle et al 2009b, Lozano et al 2010, Feliu-Batlle et al 2011, Munir et al 2012gray-Box Model Cantoni et al 2007, Domingues et al 2011, Herrera et al 2013, Bolea et al 2014b, Sadowska et al 2015a, (Horváth et al, 2015a)…”

Decentralized control of inland navigation networks with distributaries: Application to navigation canals in the north of France

“…Survey of these contributions are proposed in [7] and [10]. Most of them are dedicated to irrigation canals [8], [12], [13], [16], [17] and [4]. More recently, control algorithms have been designed considering characteristics of inland navigation reaches such as resonance, no significant slope or locks in [3] and [5].…”