Achieving transparency and adaptivity in fuzzy control framework: an application to power transformers predictive overload system

From a technologic point of view, the problem of fuzzy control deals with the real implementation of a controller on a specific hardware. Today, the market of micro-controller offers different solutions able to implement a fuzzy controller varying from application domains to programming language support. Considering the integration issue, made easier from the cheap network infrastructure, there is the need to empower practical approaches suitable to support various and different components ruled by advanced (fuzzy) control strategies. In this work we first present a general Web-based architecture that supports a high integration of heterogeneous and increasingly complex control systems, and then we focus on a Takagi-Sugeno-Kang (TSK) fuzzy model able to reproduce the thermal behaviour of mineral-oil-filled power transformers for implementing a protective overload system. The TSK fuzzy model, working on the load current waveform and on the top oil temperature (TOT), gives an accurate global prediction of the hot-spot temperature (HST) pattern. In order to validate the usefulness of the approach suggested herein, some data cases, derived from various laboratory applications, are presented to measure the accuracy and robustness of the proposed fuzzy model.