Proportional-integral-like fuzzy controller of a small-scale linear fresnel reflector solar plant

This study reports on the development and implementation of the fuzzy incremental controller on a small-scale linear fresnel reflector solar plant. The control problem is concerned with forcing the output temperature to follow the reference, despite the existence of disturbances. Owing to the non-linear effects of solar plants, the capability of fixed parameters of the proportional-integral controller to cope with the control problem is limited and leads to unsatisfactory control performance. The proposed controller is a modification to a conventional proportional-integral algorithm with better tuning flexibility. Firstly, the ant colony optimisation algorithm is used to define the optimal parameter of proportional-integral plus series feed-forward controller while guaranteeing a satisfactory performance of the plant. Secondly, the resulting controller is replaced with an equivalent fuzzy knowledge-based controller with the error and change of error of the plant as the input variables and flow rate as an output variable. The proposed controller is tested on a quasi-dynamic model of linear fresnel reflector plant using conventional and renewable energy optimisation toolbox in the environment of MATLAB/Simulink. The controller's performance is compared to the proportional-integral controller, where its effectiveness is evaluated under nominal conditions, measurement delay, noise, and presence of disturbance.