Constrained Predictive Control of an Irrigation Canal

This paper presents the application of a distributed model predictive controller (DMPC) to the control of an accurate model of an actual irrigation canal in Spain. The canal is modeled using the Saint-Venant equations and implemented using the well-known Simulation of Irrigation Canals (SIC) modeling software for irrigation canals. The DMPC algorithm has been implemented in Matlab and interfaced to SIC. In the distributed-control algorithms, the local controllers exchange information so that their control policies are optimal in the sense of getting the best value of a performance index. The results show that the proposed distributed-control algorithm obtains better control performance than a more-conventional decentralized control scheme without information exchange. This better performance translates directly into money and resource savings.