Nonlinear model predictive control applied to concentrated solar power plants

This papers presents a nonlinear model predictive controller (NMPC) for temperature control in solar collector fields. The proposed NMPC uses feedback linearization for handling the systems nonlinearities in a mixed integer quadratic programming (MIQP) formulation that makes the constraints convex in the new coordinates, making the controller solution an optimal one. Several simulations are shown with real data and a validated model of solar field to illustrate the advantages of the proposed strategy over other general-purpose NMPC methods, showing great improvement in constraint satisfaction.