A highly reliable intelligent control strategy for hydro turbine governing systems

To meet the increasing requirements on the reliability and performance of hydro turbine governors, a highly reliable intelligent control strategy which combines reliable control and self-improving control using intelligent techniques is proposed. It is successfully applied to the start-up, no-load (unsynchronized) and loaded (synchronized) control of a hydroelectric generating unit with a microcomputer-based governor. When all the components of the governor are proper, the control parameters are tuned in real time and online to adapt the characteristics and the operation states of the unit. Optimal performance is achieved. In case fault(s) reside in the governor (such as the outage of the sensor(s) or the actuator(s), misoperation(s) of the operator, etc.), the control parameter(s) are replaced or the control structure is reconfigured to ensure the stable and safe operation of the unit