Feb 11, 2015 - Abstract In order to establish successful flood control strategies to prevent or ... flood damages, real-time optimization-based control can be a ...
Water Resour Manage DOI 10.1007/s11269-015-0955-5
Combine Evolutionary Optimization with Model Predictive Control in Real-time Flood Control of a River System Po-Kuan Chiang & Patrick Willems
Received: 1 October 2014 / Accepted: 11 February 2015 # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015
Abstract In order to establish successful flood control strategies to prevent or alleviate severe flood damages, real-time optimization-based control can be a supplementary strategy, besides setting operating rules (regulations) for the hydraulic structures. This research combines evolutionary optimization, by means of a Genetic Algorithm (GA), with the Model Predictive Control (MPC) technique to develop and test a real-time flood control method for the 12 gated weirs in the Belgian case study of the river Demer. The evolution of this method is also the main contribution of this study. The combination of GA with MPC allows coping with the highly nonlinear system behaviour and local minimum problems. The system searches for better control actions by minimizing a cost function while at the same time avoiding violation of the defined constraints. The optimization results testify that the system is able to assist the current regulation strategies that are based on fixed regulation rules (three-position controller). Keywords Evolutionary algorithm . Optimization . Model predictive control . Real-time flood control
1 Introduction In Belgium, the river Demer is viewed as an important case for flood studies. The Flemish Environment Agency (Vlaamse Milieumaatschappij, VMM) installed several hydraulic structures (e.g. movable gated weirs and flood reservoirs) and formulated operating rules, but still cannot fully avoid extreme flood events. Due to the limited space available to install additional flood control reservoirs or storage zones, it becomes more important to optimally use the available storage capacity. This can be achieved by real-time control. A complete real-time flood control scheme is capable of integrating weather prediction, flood simulation and optimization models. This research investigates the applicability of an advanced control strategy by means of MPC, and discusses its potential performance for the flood mitigation of the Demer river system.
