Adaptive predictive controller applied to an open water canal

This paper concerns to the application of adaptive control to a large scale water canal experimental plant. Water canals are complex spatially distributed systems which aim at distributing water either for irrigating, or domestic, or industrial purposes. In this paper a predictive adaptive control algorithm is applied to a large scale experimental water canal prototype. The experimental water canal facilities are described briefly. This facilities are constituted by a fully instrumented canal, a PLC network and a SCADA system. This paper describes the developed software module and the applied predictive adaptive algorithm, MUSMAR. The ability of this control algorithm to cope with variable time delays makes it a good candidate to this application where time delays as well as other dynamic behavior may vary with operating conditions. Finaly, Some experimental results obtained in the experimental water canal, are presented.