Application of adaptive controllers to a solar power plant using a multi-model description

This paper presents the application of indirect adaptive controllers, using different dynamical models for the respective operating-points, to the distributed collected field of a solar power plant at the Plataforma Solar de Almeria (Spain). The operating-point of the plant together with the actual dynamical model, which is used by the adaptive controller to calculate the new value of the manipulated signal, was selected by a characteristic value determined from measurements of the plant. LQG- and GPC-type adaptive controllers, with and without integrator in the control law, were tested during the experiments. The different operating-points of the plant have been modeled by linear 3rd-order ARMAX-models with different discrete dead-times