Modelling, simulation and real-time control of a laboratory tide generation system

Small-scale experiments allow to reproduce and understand phenomena and to draw inferences about large-scale processes. In this paper, we consider a peculiar experimental apparatus which is aimed at reproducing a typical lagoonal environment subject to tidal forcings. This apparatus is useful for performing morphometric analyses of synthetic tidal networks. The quality of these kind of experiments strongly depends on the behaviour of the artificial tide that has to exhibit predefined characteristics. To this aim, the height of the artificial water wave is controlled in real-time. The experimental apparatus has an intrinsic complexity and it represents an example of a multi-domain physical system. In order to design and to assess suitable control strategies, we have developed a Matlab-based simulation environment which is able to reproduce the behaviour of the artificial tide generation system. The dynamic model is calibrated and validated by using real experimental data and it can be seen as an extremely useful tool in the decision making process of the real control system development. In particular, we have designed, tuned, and tested a model-free control algorithm, that is the intelligent-PI (i-PI). Finally, the proposed controller has been implemented on a real-time hardware and then its performance has been compared with that of a standard regulator for different type of experiments.