A Three Gate Optimal Flow Control Approach for Automatic Control of Small Hydro Power Plants using Neural Networks

Abstract

This paper presents a flow control approach for the speed control of hydro turbines. Power can be controlled by controlling the rotary motion of the spear valve. In this paper, a flow control based model is proposed for the automatic control of small hydro power plants. In the proposed model, a servomotor is used to control the flow of water by controlling the rotational motion of the spear valve. The spear valve causes a 'continuous' control of the flow of water. 'Discrete' flow control is achieved by the use of butterfly gates which are activated by DC motors. The suitability of servomotors for the control of small hydro power plants is discussed and PI controllers are used to further enhance their governing capability. State space representation is used to mathematically model the proposed model. Extensive simulations are performed to analyze the behaviour of the proposed model. Parameter optimization is performed using Artificial Neural Networks.