Design and simulation of a nonlinear fuzzy controller for a hydropower plant

A hydropower plant that has several hydraulic turbines sharing a common conduit (tunnel or penstock) is a complex nonlinear system and may be prone to instability and oscillatory behaviour. In this paper, a fuzzy controller is designed and simulated exclusively to control a hydropower plant with several hydraulically coupled turbines under nonlinear process conditions. It may replace a commonly used control arrangement of several independent PID turbine governors.