Model Predictive Control Of Water Levels In A Navigation Canal Affected By Resonance Waves

In order to operate navigation canals several requirements need to be met: keeping minimum ecological flow, flood protection, but also for safe operation the water level has to be kept within a certain range around the normal navigation level. The water level is disturbed by several factors: known (measured tributaries) and unknown (unknown tributaries, rain) inputs. However, the most important one is the operation of the locks. If the navigation reach is bounded by locks that overcome large elevation differences, their operation can create big disturbances. These locks should be operated fast enough to allow the crossing of several boats, however the faster they are operated the bigger waves they create. These waves can lead to large deviations from the normal navigation level. Moreover, they can travel several times back and forth before they attenuate, especially in cases of low base flow, high water level, and smooth surface – these are typical characteristics of a lot of navigation canals. Therefore, when the water level is controlled actively (e.g. by the gates located next to the locks) the effect of these waves should be taken into account. In this paper we present a method for a centralized control of water levels. This method decreases the effect of the waves. The method is presented on the example of the Cuinchy-Fontinettes case study