Predictive control method for decentralized operation of irrigation canals

This paper presents a digital control scheme for water level regulation in irrigation canals. The scheme considers a prototype canal composed by a series of pools connected with active gates. A control system is designed for each pool to manipulate the upstream gate to satisfy the downstream level setppints. Each control system is composed by two controllers: one implements a discrete time predictive control law that gives the desired discharge through the gate to ensure the downstream desired level; another one is a local control driving the gate to achieve the desired discharge. The paper presents the formulation of the global control scheme and shows results from simulations to illustrate and discuss the performance in different operation scenarios. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.