Modelling and PI control of an irrigation canal

Abstract

The main goal of this paper is to expose and validate a methodology to design efficient automatic controllers for irrigation canals, based on the Saint-Venant model. This model-based methodology enables to design controllers at the design stage (when the canal is not already built). The methodology is applied on an experimental canal located in Portugal. First the full nonlinear PDE model is calibrated, using a single steady-state experiment. The model is then linearized around a functioning point, in order to design linear PI controllers. Two classical control strategies are tested (local upstream control and distant downstream control) and compared on the canal. The experimental results shows the effectiveness of the method.

An Algebraic Approach for Controlling Cascade of Reaches in Irrigation Canals

“…Although some problems have been already solved in the theoritical point of view, only few of the proposed solutions have been effectively tested in a real situation (Litrico et al, 2003). Limitations of water control technology have been discussed in (Gowing., 1999).…”

“…PI (proportional and integral) control method has been used by (Xu & Sallet., 1999) to propose an output feedback controller using a linear PDE model around a steady state. Such an approach has been considered by (Litrico et al, 2003), where the authors expose and validate a methodology to design efficient automatic controllers for irrigation canals. Riemann and Lyapunov approaches are also considered (Leugering & Schmidt., 2002), (De Halleux et al, 2003), and recently by (Cen & Xi., 2009) and ).…”

Hierarchical MPC-Based Control of an Irrigation Canal

“…This is caused by the requirement of these controllers to communicate in every control step during their operation either with each other in case of distributed control, or with a control center in case of centralized control. The other extreme solution broadly used in practice is the application of decentralized PI controllers installed at each gate along the canal [10,11,16,27]. The decentralized PI controllers, while they do not add up to the communication burden as such controllers require only local information from a pool, may be unable to produce a good enough overall performance.…”

Systems Engineering for Irrigation Systems: Successes and Challenges

“…The apparent data-based validation of both a StVenant partial differential equation model and a low order grey box model within the present context poses an interesting and open question in model order reduction (Litrico et al, 2003;Litrico and Fromion, 2004).…”

“…• Perhaps the model may be further simplified using model order reduction techniques to represent only adequately the smaller closed loop behaviour (Litrico et al, 2003;Litrico and Fromion, 2004).…”