Economic Reliability-Aware MPC for Operational Management of Flow-Based Networks using Bayesian Networks

This paper presents an economic reliability-aware Model Predictive Control (MPC) approach for the Prognostics and Health Management (PHM) of generalized flow-based networks. The main enhancement with respect to some existing approaches relies on the integration of the network reliability model obtained from a Bayesian Network. In this case, the controller is able to optimally manage the supply taking into consideration the distribution of the control effort. The life of the actuators is extended by delaying as much as possible the network reliability decay. The proposed methodology also considers an optimal inventory replenishment policy based on a desired risk acceptability level, leading to the availability of safety stocks for unexpected excess demand in networks. The proposed implementation is illustrated with a real case study corresponding to an aggregate model of the Drinking Water transport Network (DWN) of Barcelona.