A physical model based approach to distributed collector solar field control

Follows an approach to the control of temperature in distributed collector solar fields which relies on a physical plant model. In this way, it is possible to overcome the problems which arise when black-box techniques are used, such as high frequency oscillations in the manipulated variable. According to the approach proposed, it is recognized that there are convenient changes of the three variables describing the field dynamics (namely time, space and temperature) which render control easier to design. Furthermore, since unnecessary excitations are avoided, increased performance results. The contributions of the paper stem thus from the characterization of the dynamics of the class of plants considered aiming at control design. Experimental results obtained in the actual plant are presented, which constitutes a major feature of the papers.