Distributed Model Predictive Control techniques applied to an irrigation canal

This paper presents the application of a Distributed Model Predictive Controller (DMPC) to the control of an accurate model of an irrigation canal in Spain. The canal is modelled using the Saint-Venant equations and its model is implemented by using the well known modelling software for irrigation canals SIC. 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 that they minimize 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.