Solar radiation estimator and fault tolerant model predictive control of a parabolic-trough field

In this paper we propose an estimator of solar radiation and a heuristic radiation selector to design a solar radiation Fault Tolerant Model Predictive Control strategy for solar trough plants. The complete design of the control system proposed has been simulated using the model of ACUREX solar trough plant at the Plataforma Solar de Almería (PSA) using a Gain Scheduling Generalized Predictive Control(GS-GPC) control strategy. Simulation results (estimation/heuristic selector/GS-GPC) of the proposed scheme are compared with simulations of the same GS-GPC controller strategy when using only a pyrheliometer radiation measurement.