Control oriented concentrating solar power (CSP) plant model and its applications

Solar receivers in concentrating solar thermal power plants (CSP) undergo over 10,000 start-ups and shutdowns, and over 25,000 rapid rate of change in temperature on receivers due to cloud transients resulting in performance degradation and material fatigue in their expected lifetime of over 30 years. The research proposes to develop a three-level controller that uses multi-input-multi-output (MIMO) control technology to minimize the effect of these disturbances, improve plant performance, and extend plant life. The controller can be readily installed on any vendor supplied state-of-the-art control hardware.^ We propose a three-level controller architecture using multi-input-multi-output (MIMO) control for CSP plants that can be implemented on existing plants to improve performance, reliability, and extend the life of the plant. This architecture optimizes the performance on multiple time scalesreactive level (regulation to temperature set points), tactical level (adaptation of temperature set points), and strategic level (trading off fatigue life due to thermal cycling and current production). This controller unique to CSP plants operating at temperatures greater than 550°C, will make CSPs competitive with conventional power plants and contribute significantly towards the Sunshot goal of 0.06/kWh(e), while responding with agility to both market dynamics and changes in solar irradiance such as due to passing clouds. Moreover, our development of control software with performance guarantees will avoid early stage failures and permit smooth grid integration of the CSP power plants. The proposed controller can be implemented with existing control hardware infrastructure with little or no additional equipment.^ In the thesis, we demonstrate a dynamics model of CSP, of which different components are modelled with different time scales. We also show a real time control strategy of CSP control oriented model in steady state. Furthermore, we shown different controllers design for disturbance rejection and reference tracking to handle complex receiver dynamics under system disturbance and measurement noise. At last, we show different applications of this control oriented CSP model including life cycle enhancement and electricity load forecasting using both neural network and regression tree

EFFICIENCY OPTIMIZATION OF AN OPENLOOP CONTROLLED PERMANENT MAGNET SYNCHRONOUS MOTOR DRIVE USING ADAPTIVE NEURAL NETWORKS

When a Permanent Magnet Synchronous Machine (PMSM) is utilized for applications where high dynamic performance is not a requirement, a simple open loop control strategy can be used to control them. PMSMs however are prone to instability when operated open loop in a variable speed drive, particularly at mid-frequencies/speeds. This paper presents an open-loop control strategy based on a direct adaptive neural network controller is developed for efficiency optimization of open-loop controlled PMSM drive. Stability constraints of the drive system which was previously reported are used to maintain both stable and highly efficient operation of the drive system. The adopted neural network can be viewed as a method for nonlinear adaptive system identification, relying on pattern recognition of stability limits and maximum obtainable efficiency. Results from computer simulation show that a stable and highly efficient operation can be maintained for the drive system under study irrespective of load and supply variations. The obtained results are also found in correlation with previously reported experiments and observations

A LYAPUNOV BASED APPROACH TO ENERGY MAXIMIZATION IN RENEWABLE ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES

This dissertation describes the design and implementation of Lyapunov-based control strategies for the maximization of the power captured by renewable energy harnessing technologies such as (i) a variable speed, variable pitch wind turbine, (ii) a variable speed wind turbine coupled to a doubly fed induction generator, and (iii) a solar power generating system charging a constant voltage battery. First, a torque control strategy is presented to maximize wind energy captured in variable speed, variable pitch wind turbines at low to medium wind speeds. The proposed strategy applies control torque to the wind turbine pitch and rotor subsystems to simultaneously control the blade pitch and tip speed ratio, via the rotor angular speed, to an optimum point at which the capture efficiency is maximum. The control method allows for aerodynamic rotor power maximization without exact knowledge of the wind turbine model. A series of numerical results show that the wind turbine can be controlled to achieve maximum energy capture. Next, a control strategy is proposed to maximize the wind energy captured in a variable speed wind turbine, with an internal induction generator, at low to medium wind speeds. The proposed strategy controls the tip speed ratio, via the rotor angular speed, to an optimum point at which the efficiency constant (or power coefficient) is maximal for a particular blade pitch angle and wind speed by using the generator rotor voltage as a control input. This control method allows for aerodynamic rotor power maximization without exact wind turbine model knowledge. Representative numerical results demonstrate that the wind turbine can be controlled to achieve near maximum energy capture. Finally, a power system consisting of a photovoltaic (PV) array panel, dc-to-dc switching converter, charging a battery is considered wherein the environmental conditions are time-varying. A backstepping PWM controller is developed to maximize the power of the solar generating system. The controller tracks a desired array voltage, designed online using an incremental conductance extremum-seeking algorithm, by varying the duty cycle of the switching converter. The stability of the control algorithm is demonstrated by means of Lyapunov analysis. Representative numerical results demonstrate that the grid power system can be controlled to track the maximum power point of the photovoltaic array panel in varying atmospheric conditions. Additionally, the performance of the proposed strategy is compared to the typical maximum power point tracking (MPPT) method of perturb and observe (P&O), where the converter dynamics are ignored, and is shown to yield better results

Advanced Mathematics and Computational Applications in Control Systems Engineering

Control system engineering is a multidisciplinary discipline that applies automatic control theory to design systems with desired behaviors in control environments. Automatic control theory has played a vital role in the advancement of engineering and science. It has become an essential and integral part of modern industrial and manufacturing processes. Today, the requirements for control precision have increased, and real systems have become more complex. In control engineering and all other engineering disciplines, the impact of advanced mathematical and computational methods is rapidly increasing. Advanced mathematical methods are needed because real-world control systems need to comply with several conditions related to product quality and safety constraints that have to be taken into account in the problem formulation. Conversely, the increment in mathematical complexity has an impact on the computational aspects related to numerical simulation and practical implementation of the algorithms, where a balance must also be maintained between implementation costs and the performance of the control system. This book is a comprehensive set of articles reflecting recent advances in developing and applying advanced mathematics and computational applications in control system engineering

Advanced control designs for output tracking of hydrostatic transmissions

The work addresses simple but efficient model descriptions in a combination with advanced control and estimation approaches to achieve an accurate tracking of the desired trajectories. The proposed control designs are capable of fully exploiting the wide operation range of HSTs within the system configuration limits. A new trajectory planning scheme for the output tracking that uses both the primary and secondary control inputs was developed. Simple models or even purely data-driven models are envisaged and deployed to develop several advanced control approaches for HST systems

Design and Control of Electrical Motor Drives

Dear Colleagues, I am very happy to have this Special Issue of the journal Energies on the topic of Design and Control of Electrical Motor Drives published. Electrical motor drives are widely used in the industry, automation, transportation, and home appliances. Indeed, rolling mills, machine tools, high-speed trains, subway systems, elevators, electric vehicles, air conditioners, all depend on electrical motor drives.However, the production of effective and practical motors and drives requires flexibility in the regulation of current, torque, flux, acceleration, position, and speed. Without proper modeling, drive, and control, these motor drive systems cannot function effectively.To address these issues, we need to focus on the design, modeling, drive, and control of different types of motors, such as induction motors, permanent magnet synchronous motors, brushless DC motors, DC motors, synchronous reluctance motors, switched reluctance motors, flux-switching motors, linear motors, and step motors.Therefore, relevant research topics in this field of study include modeling electrical motor drives, both in transient and in steady-state, and designing control methods based on novel control strategies (e.g., PI controllers, fuzzy logic controllers, neural network controllers, predictive controllers, adaptive controllers, nonlinear controllers, etc.), with particular attention to transient responses, load disturbances, fault tolerance, and multi-motor drive techniques. This Special Issue include original contributions regarding recent developments and ideas in motor design, motor drive, and motor control. The topics include motor design, field-oriented control, torque control, reliability improvement, advanced controllers for motor drive systems, DSP-based sensorless motor drive systems, high-performance motor drive systems, high-efficiency motor drive systems, and practical applications of motor drive systems. I want to sincerely thank authors, reviewers, and staff members for their time and efforts. Prof. Dr. Tian-Hua Liu Guest Edito

Sliding Mode Control

The main objective of this monograph is to present a broad range of well worked out, recent application studies as well as theoretical contributions in the field of sliding mode control system analysis and design. The contributions presented here include new theoretical developments as well as successful applications of variable structure controllers primarily in the field of power electronics, electric drives and motion steering systems. They enrich the current state of the art, and motivate and encourage new ideas and solutions in the sliding mode control area

Stability Analysis and Robust Controller Design of Indirect Vector Controlled Induction Motor

The thesis considers stability analysis and controller design through different performance measures for indirect vector controlled induction motor (IVCIM).These problems are known to be complex due to nonlinearity, large order and multi-loop scenario. Some new approaches and results on IVCIM are proposed in this work. IVCIM dynamics is well known for having different bifurcation behavior, viz., saddle-node, Hopf, Bogdanov–Takens and Zero–Hopf bifurcations due to rotor resistance variation. These bifurcations affect the control performance and may lead to stalling or permanent damage of motor. A numerical analysis of these bifurcations for proportional integral (PI) controlled IVCIM is made in this thesis using full-order induction motor model (stator dynamics is included). This analysis aids to determine the allowable bifurcation parameter variation range as well as suitable choice of speed-loop gains to avoid these. Some new observations on the bifurcation behavior are made. Simulation and experimental results are presented validating the bifurcation behaviors. For improving dynamic performance in the presence of load torque and rotor resistance variation, a new method for designing PI gains is proposed for IVCIM. The inner-loop current PI controllers are tuned simultaneously along with the speed controller. This method is implemented using a static output feedback scheme in which iterative linear matrix inequality (ILMI) based∞control technique is employed. Such a design makes stator currents and speed response to be robust against rotor resistance and load variations. A comparison between proposed design and a conventional one is shown using simulation and experimental results that validate the superiority of the proposed approach. Owing to multi-loop and nonlinear system behavior, IVCIM dynamics is known to have coupling in between the two inner-loop stator current components (flux and torque). Such coupling affects the dynamic torque output of the motor. Decoupling of the stator currents are important for smoother torque response of IVCIM. Conventionally, additional feedforward decoupler is used to take care of the coupling that requires exact knowledge of the motor parameters and additional circuitry or signal processing. A method is proposed to design the regulating PI gains while minimizing coupling without any requirement of additional decoupler. The variation of the coupling terms for change in load torque is considered as the performance measure. The same ILMI based∞control design approach is used to obtain the controller gains. A comparison between the conventional feedforward decoupling and proposed decoupling scheme is presented through simulation and experimental results that establish the effectiveness of the proposed method riding over its simplicity. Finally, since the PI controller can yield limited performance, a dynamic controller is designed for the IVCIM drive system. In the design process, iron-loss dynamics are incorporated into induction motor model to fetch benefit through better performance. A sequential design method is used for the controller design in which, first, the inner-loop controllers are designed. The designed inner-loop controllers is then used for designing the outer speed-loop controller. The proposed design employs ILMI based∞control design for dynamic output feedback controller that makes stator currents and speed response to be robust against disturbances. A comparison among proposed dynamic controller design, PI controller and compensator design is shown using simulation and experimental results demonstrate enhanced performance of the proposed controller and suitability for industrial purpose