Reference:
S. Leirens,
C. Zamora,
R.R. Negenborn, and
B. De Schutter,
"Coordination in urban water supply networks using distributed model
predictive control," Proceedings of the 2010 American Control
Conference, Baltimore, Maryland, pp. 3957-3962, June-July 2010.
Abstract:
Urban water supply networks are large-scale systems that transport
potable water over vast geographical areas to millions of consumers. A
safe and efficient operation of these networks is crucial, as without
it living in today's cities would be impossible. To achieve an
adequate operation, these networks are equipped with actuators like
pumps and valves, which are used to maintain water pressures and flows
within safe margins. Currently, these actuators are controlled in a
decentralized way using local controllers that only use local
information and that do not take into account the presence of other
controllers. As a result, water supply networks regularly experience
pressure drops and interruptions of water supply when there is an
unexpected increase in water demand. To improve performance the
actions of the local controllers should be coordinated. Implementing a
centralized control scheme is not tractable due to the large-scale
nature of these networks. Therefore, this paper proposes the
application of a distributed control scheme for control of urban water
supply networks. The scheme is based on local model predictive control
(MPC) strategies and a parallel coordination scheme that implements
cooperation among the local MPC controllers. A simulation study based
on a part of the urban water supply network of Bogotá, the
capital of Colombia, illustrates the potential of the approach.