Mathematical Modeling of the Parabolic Trough Collector Field of the TCP-100 Research Plant

The 9th EUROSIM Congress on Modelling and Simulation, EUROSIM 2016 Oulu (Finlandia)There are two main drawbacks when operating solar energy systems: a) the resulting energy costs are not yet competitive and b) solar energy is not always available when needed. In order to improve the overall solar plants efficiency, advances control techniques play an important role. In order to develop efficient and robust control techniques, the use of accurate mathematical models is crucial. In this paper, the mathematical modeling of the new TCP100 parabolic trough collector (PTC) research facility at the Plataforma Solar de Almería is presented. Some simulations are shown to demonstrate the adequate behavior of the model compared to the facility design conditions.Junta de Andalucía P11-TEP-8129Unión Europea FP7-ICT-ICT-2013.3.4-611281Ministerio de Economía y Competitividadt DPI2014-56364-C2-2-

Incremental State-Space Model Predictive Control of a Fresnel Solar Collector Field

Model predictive control has been demonstrated to be one of the most efficient control techniques for solar power systems. An incremental offset-free state-space Model Predictive Controller (MPC) is developed for the Fresnel collector field located at the solar cooling plant installed on the roof of the Engineering School of Sevilla. A robust Luenberger observer is used for estimating the states of the plant which cannot be measured. The proposed strategy is tested on a nonlinear distributed parameter model of the Fresnel collector field. Its performance is compared to that obtained with a gain-scheduling generalized predictive controller. A real test carried out at the real plant is presented, showing that the proposed strategy achieves a very good performance.Comisión Europea ID 78905

Medidas multi-influencia como medio para caracterizar la firma global de un buque y proteger el entorno marino

The overall signature of a vessel comprises acoustic, magnetic, electric-field, pressure, and seismic radiations. Over the past years, the international community’s efforts have mainly centered on reducing the acoustic influence with the dual aim of decreasing the vessel’s detectability and reducing the levels of acoustic pollution generated in the marine environment. Nowadays, the need to act not only on the acoustic radiation but against the overall set of the vessel’s radiations is becoming increasingly clear, both in the military and the civilian fields, based on aspects like vessel stealthiness, security of harbor and critical infrastructures, and environmental protection. As a key element to achieve this goal, it is greatly important to have at our disposal highly modular and adaptable measurement systems covering the overall set of the vessel’s radiations, with a high capacity of data transmission to base centers to have the capacity to make measurements in all kinds of marine environments.La firma global de un buque está compuesta por radiaciones: acústica, magnética, de campo eléctrico, de presión y sísmica. A lo largo de los últimos años, los esfuerzos de la comunidad internacional se han centrado principalmente en reducir la influencia acústica, con el doble objetivo de disminuir la detectabilidad del buque y reducir el nivel de contaminación acústica generada en el entorno marino. En la actualidad, se está constatando con claridad la necesidad de actuar no sólo sobre la radiación acústica, sino sobre el conjunto global de las radiaciones del buque, tanto en el ámbito militar como en el ámbito civil, basado en aspectos como: la discreción de los buques, la seguridad en puertos e infraestructuras críticas y la protección ambiental. Como elemento clave para alcanzar esta meta, es de gran importancia tener a nuestra disposición sistemas de medida adaptables y altamente modulares que cubran el conjunto total de las radiaciones de los buques, con alta capacidad de transmisión de datos a centros base, con el objeto de tener la capacidad de realizar medidas en toda clase de entornos marinos

Deep Learning-Based Fault Detection and Isolation in Solar Plants for Highly Dynamic Days

ICCAD'22: 2022- 6th International Conference on Control, Automation and Diagnosis, Lisbon, Portugal, July 13-15, 2022Solar plants are exposed to numerous agents that degrade and damage their components. Due to their large size and constant operation, it is not easy to access them constantly to analyze possible failures on-site. It is, therefore, necessary to use techniques that automatically detect faults. In addition, it is crucial to detect the fault and know its location to deal with it as quickly and effectively as possible. This work applies a fault detection and isolation method to parabolic trough collector plants. A characteristic of solar plants is that they are highly dependent on the sun and the existence of clouds throughout the day, so it is not easy to achieve methods that work well when disturbances are too variable and difficult to predict. This work proposes dynamic artificial neural networks (ANNs) that take into account past information and are not so sensitive to the variations of the plant at each moment. With this, three types of failures are distinguished: failures in the optical efficiency of the mirrors, flow rate, and thermal losses in the pipes. Different ANNs have been proposed and compared with a simple feedforward ANN, obtaining an accuracy of 73.35%.European Research Council 10.13039/50110000078

Hybrid Nonlinear MPC of a Solar Cooling Plant

Solar energy for cooling systems has been widely used to fulfill the growing air conditioning demand. The advantage of this approach is based on the fact that the need of air conditioning is usually well correlated to solar radiation. These kinds of plants can work in different operation modes resulting on a hybrid system. The control approaches designed for this kind of plant have usually a twofold goal: (a) regulating the outlet temperature of the solar collector field and (b) choosing the operation mode. Since the operation mode is defined by a set of valve positions (discrete variables), the overall control problem is a nonlinear optimization problem which involves discrete and continuous variables. This problems are difficult to solve within the normal sampling times for control purposes (around 20–30 s). In this paper, a two layer control strategy is proposed. The first layer is a nonlinear model predictive controller for regulating the outlet temperature of the solar field. The second layer is a fuzzy algorithm which selects the adequate operation mode for the plant taken into account the operation conditions. The control strategy is tested on a model of the plant showing a proper performance.Unión Europea OCONTSOLAR ID 78905

A deep learning-based strategy for fault detection and isolation in parabolic-trough collectors

Solar plants are exposed to the appearance of faults in some of their components, as they are vulnerable to the action of external agents (wind, rain, dust, birds …) and internal defects. However, it is necessary to ensure a satisfactory operation when these factors affect the plant. Fault detection and diagnosis methods are essential to detecting and locating the faults, maintaining efficiency and safety in the plant. This work proposes a methodology for detecting and isolating faults in parabolic-trough plants. It is based on a three-layer methodology composed of a neural network to obtain a preliminary detection and classification between three types of fault, a second stage analyzing the flow rate dynamics, and a third stage defocusing the first collector to analyze thermal losses. The methodology has been applied by simulation to a model of the ACUREX plant, which was located at the Plataforma Solar de Almería. The confusion matrices have been obtained, with accuracies over 80% when using the three layers in a hierarchical structure. By forcing all the three layers, the accuracies exceed 90%.Unión Europea - Horizonte 2020 No 789 05

Evaluación de inmunidad cruzada frente a trematodos parásitos mediante antígenos pùrificados por FPLC

Comunicaciones a congreso

Application of model predictive control to parabolic trough thermal solar plants

[EN] One of the main methods to improve the efficiency in the use of solar energy is the application of advanced control techniques.This work develops a state of the art of predictive control applications to small and large scale solar trough plants. Two realapplications are presented. The first one is designed to the old ACUREX experimental plant at the Plataforma solar de Almer ??a(PSA). The second one is the design of a model predictive controller for large scale commercial CCP plants that is installed in 13Spanish plants as well as in the Mojave solar trough plants in California (USA). Finally, two real results obtained at the MojaveBeta plant are presented showing the adequate performance of the controller.[ES] Uno de los principales métodos para mejorar la eficiencia en el uso y aprovechamiento de la energía solar es la aplicación de técnicas avanzadas de control. En este trabajo se presenta un estado del arte de las aplicaciones de control predictivo en plantassolares de pequeña y gran escala. Se presentan además dos aplicaciones reales: una que se diseño para la planta experimental ACUREX en la Plataforma solar de Almería (PSA). El controlador fue probado en el campo real con buen desempeño. La otra aplicación describe el diseño de un controlador predictivo para plantas comerciales de colectores cilindro parabólicos (CCP) que está instalado en 13 plantas Españolas así como en las plantas de Mojave en California (USA). Se muestran dos resultados reales obtenidos en la planta Mojave Beta con el controlador propuesto.Los autores quieren agradecer a Atlantica Sustainable Infrastructure por financiar y participar en la realización de este proyecto. Los autores agradecen tambien al European Research Council por financiar el trabajo mediante la Advanced Grant OCONTSOLAR (Project ID: 789051).Gallego Len, AJ.; Sánchez Del Pozo, AJ.; Camacho, EF. (2022). Aplicaciones de control predictivo en plantas solares CCP. Revista Iberoamericana de Automática e Informática industrial. 19(3):309-317. https://doi.org/10.4995/riai.2022.16664OJS30931719

Nuevas localidades de especies interesantes en Doñana y la costa de Huelva (Sw España)

New floristic records of species for Doñana and Huelva (SW Spain) Palabras clave. Flora, Doñana, Calystegia soldanella, Herniaria cinerea, Trigonella monspeliaca, Viola lactea, Wolffia arrhiza, especies amenazadas.Key words. Flora, Doñana, Calystegia soldanella, Herniaria cinerea, Trigonella monspeliaca, Viola lactea, Wolffia arrhiza, threatened species

CASSIA (cardiology software suite for image analysis): a potential new tool for the evaluation of [18F]FDG PET/CT in the setting of infective endocarditis.

Due to the high morbidity and mortality of infective endocarditis (IE), medical imaging techniques are combined to ensure a correct diagnosis. [18F]FDG PET/CT has demonstrated the ability to improve diagnostic accuracy compared with the conventional modified Duke criteria in patients with suspected IE, especially those with prosthetic valve infective endocarditis (PVIE). The aim of this study is to provide an adjunctive diagnostic tool to improve the diagnostic accuracy in cardiovascular infections, specifically PVIE. A segmentation tool to extract quantitative measures of [18F]FDG PET/CT image studies of prosthetic heart valve regions was developed and validated in 20 cases of suspected PVIE, of which 9 were confirmed. For that, Valvular Heterogeneity Index (VHI) and Ring-to-Center Ratio (RCR) were defined. Results show an overall increase in the metabolic uptake of the prosthetic valve ring in the studies with confirmed PVIE diagnosis (SUVmax from 1.70 to 3.20; SUVmean from 0.86 to 1.50). The VHI and RCR showed areas under the curve of 0.727 and 0.808 in the receiver operating characteristics curve analyses, respectively, for PVIE diagnosis. Mann-Whitney U tests showed statistically significant differences between groups for RCR (p = 0.02). Visual analyses and clinical reports were concordant with the extracted quantitative metrics. The proposed new method and presented software solution (CASSIA) provide the capability to assess quantitatively myocardial metabolism along the prosthetic valve region in routine [18F]FDG PET/CT scans for evaluating heart valve infectious processes. VHI and RCR are proposed as new potential adjunctive measures for PVIE diagnosis.The project was partially funded by Sociedad Española de Cardiología (SEC/FEC-INVBAS 21/022). Open Access funding provided thanks to the CRUE-CSIC agreement with Springer Nature.S