Water level control of small-scale hydro-generating units by fuzzy logic

In this paper, we introduce a water level control for small-scale hydro-generating units based on fuzzy logic. The difficulty of small-scale hydro-generating systems is the small capacity of reservoir and they often operate under strict water level control by a feedback control. However, the adjustment of the feedback control is difficult because of nonlinearity and disturbance. By the application of fuzzy logic, the control strategy can be written in the IF-THEN rule form, which is highly conformable to the human logic. The conditions of the water level control are expressed by fuzzy sets, and fuzzy reasoning performs a multi-attribute decision making. Model analysis is given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the fuzzy logic control. The simulation results show that the fuzzy logic control is suitable to maintain the water level within certain limits while pursuing other operational goals at the same time.