Sensorless Control of Flow and Pressure by Using Micro Hydropower Generator

Abstract

This paper presents the use of a water wheel as an alternative to a flow or pressure regulating valve in a water supply system. The proposed system not only controls the flow and pressure but also generates electricity. A sensorless control method is also proposed so that the flow and pressure can be estimated by function approximation of the waterwheel characteristics using the Buckingham π theorem. The performance of the proposed method was validated experimentally.