Design of a multi-mode intelligent model predictive control strategy for hydroelectric generating unit

This paper proposes a nonlinear multi-mode intelligent model predictive control (MPC) strategy for hydroelectric generating unit (HGU). In this multi-mode MPC scheme, excitation MPC mode and integrated MPC mode work for excitation control process and load scheduling condition, respectively. Every control mode is built on the basis of a tree–seed algorithm based model predictive control (TSA–MPC) scheme, which introduces a newly proposed tree–seed algorithm (TSA) and the stability-guaranteed measures into rolling optimization mechanism of nonlinear MPC (NMPC) to replace the existing complex numerical differential geometric solutions. Simulation experiments of the proposed multi-mode MPC and the comparative methods are undertaken under diverse operating conditions in a HGU control system as case studies. Experimental results indicate the superiority in voltage regulation and damping performance as well as the effectiveness of the comprehensive control of turbine governing and generator excitation.