Water demand forecasting for the optimal operation of large-scale drinking water networks: The Barcelona Case Study.

Abstract

Drinking Water Networks (DWN) are large-scale multiple-input multiple-output systems with uncertain disturbances (such as the water demand from the consumers) and involve components of linear, non-linear and switching nature. Operating, safety and quality constraints deem it important for the state and the input of such systems to be constrained into a given domain. Moreover, DWNs' operation is driven by time-varying demands and involves an considerable consumption of electric energy and the exploitation of limited water resources. Hence, the management of these networks must be carried out optimally with respect to the use of available resources and infrastructure, whilst satisfying high service levels for the drinking water supply. To accomplish this task, this paper explores various methods for demand forecasting, such as Seasonal ARIMA, BATS and Support Vector Machine, and presents a set of statistically validated time series models. These models, integrated with a Model Predictive Control (MPC) strategy addressed in this paper, allow to account for an accurate on-line forecasting and flow management of a DWN.

Distributed solution of stochastic optimal control problems on GPUs

“…Such problems arise in stochastic model predictive control of Markovian switching systems [1], stochastic control of networked systems [2] and of large-scale uncertain systems [3], portfolio optimization under uncertainty [4], inventory management [5], management of supply chain systems [6] and in many other applications of stochastic optimal control.…”

Reliability–based economic model predictive control for generalised flow–based networks including actuators’ health–aware capabilities

“…The main control task for managers is to economically optimise the network flows while satisfying customer demands. These demands are characterised by patterns of water usage and can be forecasted by different methods, (see, e.g., Billings and Jones, 2008;Sampathirao et al, 2014).…”

Decentralised Hierarchical Multi-rate Control of Large-Scale Drinking Water Networks

“…Note that, except for the last consequence of the theorem, no convergence of the system's trajectories to some constant value is assumed or required. This suggests that a purely cost-driven approach can be applied where the system's trajectories move in an oscillatory manner leading to an economically profitable performance determined by the optimisation of a performance criterion in a receding horizon fashion [9,10].…”

“…One key reason for the use of decentralised control schemes is the need to isolate certain parts of the network for maintenance purposes without the need to re-model the overall system. Recently, Sampathirao et al [9] proposed a control framework for large-scale DWNs where pumping actions are computed by minimising a cost index. Such approaches are in the spirit of economic MPC [10], and, despite the fact that are proven to lead to improved closed-loop behaviour, may fail to guarantee the satisfaction of state constraints in closed loop.…”