Silvio Simani

• Doctor, Ph.D.
• University of Ferrara

This article presents an in-depth analysis of three advanced strategies to tune fractional PID (FOPID) controllers for a nonlinear system of interconnected tanks, simulated using MATLAB. The study focuses on evaluating the performance characteristics of system responses controlled by FOPID controllers tuned through three heuristic algorithms: Ant C...

The absence of fault data in certain categories presents a significant challenge in data-driven fault diagnosis, as obtaining a complete fault dataset is often unfeasible. Zero-shot learning has emerged as a viable solution to this problem. Nonetheless, it often encounters problem of unreliable diagnosis results due to domain shift. In this article...

Accurate forecasting of wind power is essential for preserving the stability of the system, reducing costs, and making the most of available resources. On the other hand, there is a limited amount of data to work with, which, along with the high processing needs, makes the training process resource-intensive. The purpose of this research is to offe...

Les techniques de diagnostic des défauts, en particulier pour les systèmes exigeants qui nécessitent fiabilité, disponibilité et sécurité, posent de nombreux défis.Diagnostic et commande à tolérance de fautes 1 présente un panorama complet des avancées récentes en matière de diagnostic des défauts dans les systèmes dynamiques complexes. Le besoin d...

Les techniques de diagnostic des défauts, en particulier pour les systèmes exigeants qui nécessitent fiabilité, disponibilité et sécurité, posent de nombreux défis.Diagnostic et commande à tolérance de fautes 1 présente un panorama complet des avancées récentes en matière de diagnostic des défauts dans les systèmes dynamiques complexes. Le besoin d...

Les techniques de diagnostic des défauts, en particulier pour les systèmes exigeants qui nécessitent fiabilité, disponibilité et sécurité, posent de nombreux défis.Diagnostic et commande à tolérance de fautes 1 présente un panorama complet des avancées récentes en matière de diagnostic des défauts dans les systèmes dynamiques complexes. Le besoin d...

2024 IEEE 20th International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (CASE 2024) - Special Session Invitation

Guaranteed system performance under various circumstances continues to be a challenge in technique and practice. Based on this, this article investigates the optimal fault-tolerant control strategy for a large-scale interconnected system with the intermittent actuator faults. Since the subsystem state is enforced to a restricted range, an asymmetri...

Few-shot fault diagnosis is a challenging problem for complex engineering systems due to the shortage of enough annotated failure samples. This problem is increased by varying working conditions that are commonly encountered in real-world systems. Meta-learning is a promising strategy to solve this point, open issues remain unresolved in practical...

This study investigates the prescribed-time leader-follower formation strategy for heterogeneous multiagent sys-tems including unmanned aerial vehicles and unmanned ground vehicles under time-varying actuator faults and unknown dis-turbances based on adaptive neural network observers and backstepping method. Compared with the relevant works, the ma...

The journal retracts the article entitled “Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition for Fault Diagnosis of Wind Turbines via Deep Transfer Learning” [...]

Wake steering yaws upstream wind turbines to deflect their wakes from downstream turbines, thus increasing the generated power. However, most wake steering methods rely on lookup tables obtained offline, which map a set of conditions, such as wind speed and direction, to yaw angles for each turbine in a farm. These tables assume all turbines are op...

The prediction of remaining useful life is critical in predictive health management. This is done to reduce the expenses associated with operation and maintenance by avoiding errors and failures in dynamic processes. Recently, the abilities of feature classification and automated extraction of neural networks in its convolutional forms have shown f...

Few-shot fault diagnosis (i.e., fault diagnosis with few samples) is a challenging issue in practice because fault samples are scarce and difficult to obtain. Data augmentation based on generative adversarial networks (GAN) has proven to be an effective solution. However, it often encounters problems such as difficult model training and low quality...

The installed wind power capacity is growing worldwide. Remote condition monitoring of wind turbines is employed to achieve higher up-times and lower maintenance costs. Machine learning approaches can be used for detecting developing faults in wind turbines in their earlier occurrence. However, training fault detection models may require large amou...

Upstream wind turbines yaw to divert their wakes away from downstream turbines, increasing the power produced. Nevertheless, the majority of wake steering techniques rely on offline lookup tables that translate a set of parameters, including wind speed and direction, to yaw angles for each turbine in a farm. These charts assume that every turbine i...

The installed wind power capacity is growing worldwide. Remote condition monitoring of wind turbines is employed to achieve higher uptimes and lower maintenance costs. Machine learning models can detect developing damages in wind turbines. Therefore, this paper demonstrates that cross–turbine transfer learning can drastically improve the accuracy o...

This research proposed an optimal control approach for a smart grid electrical system with photovoltaic generation, where the control variables are voltage and frequency, which aims to improve the performance through addressing the need for a balance between the minimization of error and the operational cost. The proposed control scheme incorporate...

An integrated guidance and control system for tracking a reference flight path trajectory of a reusable launch vehicle in the presence of model uncertainties, external disturbances, and measurement noises is proposed. To achieve this goal, a properly-trained feedforward neural network to estimate uncertainties in conjunction with a disturbance obse...

Wind turbine plants are complex dynamic and uncertain processes driven by stochastic inputs and disturbances, as well as different loads represented by gyroscopic, centrifugal, and gravitational forces. Moreover, as their aerodynamic models are nonlinear, both modelling and control become challenging problems. On one hand, high–fidelity simulators...

In this paper, a combined robust fault detection and isolation scheme is studied for satellite system subject to actuator faults, external disturbances, and parametric uncertainties. The proposed methodology incorporates a residual generation module, including a bank of filters, into an intelligent residual evaluation module. First, residual filter...

Wind turbines are playing an increasingly important role in renewable power generation. Their complex and large-scale structure, however, and operation in remote locations with harsh environmental conditions and highly variable stochastic loads make fault occurrence inevitable. Early detection and location of faults are vital for maintaining a high...

The paper addresses the development of a perturb and observe algorithm implemented for maximum power point tracking control of a permanent magnet synchronous generator. It is shown that this algorithm tracks the optimum operation point and provides fast response even in the presence of faults. The strategy implements the tracking algorithm by using...

This paper proposes a novel double-loop control strategy for a single-stage boost inverter for a standalone photovoltaic system. This strategy includes compensation filters to avoid high currents and abrupt voltage variations. The final load has a non-linear behavior, representing new electronic components in the grid. The system is implemented in...

The paper presents the design and control strategy of an isolated DC microgrid, which is based on classical control techniques, predictive control and iterative algorithms. The design control parameters are maximum overshoot, settling time and voltage ripple. The strategy is designed to operate in two different modes, end-users minimum and maximum...

The paper addresses the development of an artificial intelligence algorithm implemented for maximum power point tracking control of a unmanned underwater vehicle. It is shown that this algorithm tracks the optimum operation point and provides fast response even in the presence of faults. The strategy implements the tracking algorithm by using real—...

Several recent developments in fractional calculus have led to an increased interest in fractional-ordered modeling of physical systems. In this paper, complex dynamics of a flexible satellite in the fractional setting are proposed and investigated for the first time in the literature. The dynamic equations are derived using generalised fractional-...

Motivated for improving the efficiency and reliability of wind turbine energy conversion, this paper presents an advanced control design that enhances the power regulation efficiency and reliability. The constrained behavior of the wind turbine is taken into account, by using the barrier Lyapunov function in the analysis of the Lyapunov direct meth...

Motivated for improving the efficiency and reliability of wind turbine energy conversion, this paper presents an advanced control design that enhances the power regulation efficiency and re-liability. The constrained behaviour of the wind turbine is taken into account, by using the barrier Lyapunov function in the analysis of the Lyapunov direct me...

Photovoltaic (PV) generation systems have become part of the electrical distribution networks due to their clean energy and adaptability. The increasing energy consumption and the several load types in the distribution network could produce voltage deviation. Therefore, there are some strategies, which are used to solve this problem, for example, c...

In this work, it is explained a perturb and observe algorithm applied to a wind turbine for maximum power point tracking control. This algorithm tracks for the optimum operation point and provides a fast response. The system develops the tracking using real-time measurements and provides maximum power to the grid without using online data training....

The fault diagnosis of wind turbines includes extremely challenging aspects that motivate the research issues considered in this paper. In particular, this work studies fault diagnosis solutions that are considered in a viable way and used as advanced techniques for condition monitoring of dynamic processes. To this end, the work proposes the desig...

To enhance both the safety and the efficiency of offshore wind park systems, faults must be accommodated in their earlier occurrence, in order to avoid costly unplanned maintenance. Therefore, this paper aims at implementing a fault tolerant control strategy by means of a data–driven approach relying on fuzzy logic. In particular, fuzzy modelling i...

This paper proposes the development of a scheme for the fault diagnosis of the actuators of a simulated model accurately representing the behaviour of an autonomous underwater vehicle. The Fossen model usually adopted to describe the dynamics of the underwater vehicle has been generalised in this paper to take into account time-varying sea currents...

The paper addresses the development of a perturb and observe algorithm implemented for maximum power point tracking control of a permanent magnet synchronous generator. It is shown that this algorithm tracks the optimum operation point and provides fast response even in the presence of faults. The strategy implements the tracking algorithm by using...

The interest towards renewable energy resources is increasing, and in particular it concerns wind and hydro powers, where the key point regards their efficient conversion into electric energy. To this end, control techniques can be used to meet this purpose, especially the ones relying on fuzzy models, due to their capabilities to manage nonlinear...

This chapter discusses some important topics that should help the reader to understand how to move from fault diagnosis to fault tolerance. It presents the fault-tolerant control algorithms applied to dynamic processes. The chapter also discusses passive and active fault-tolerant control systems and highlights the achievable performances and the co...

This chapter proposes some new ideas regarding the developments in advanced control, condition monitoring and innovative strategies for technical processes and industrial plants that allow us to both maximize the system performance and reduce their installation, operation and maintenance costs. It focuses on the design of suitable control schemes t...

This paper is a research article for finding the optimal control of smart power substations for improving the network parameters and reliability. The included papers are the most essential and main studies in the field, which propose a different approach to reach the best performance in electrical power systems. The parameters for improvement are t...

This chapter provides an overview on the various fault detection methods, with particular attention to the fault detection and isolation (FDI) techniques. For all of the methods considered, it is essential that the process can be described by a mathematical model. The chapter presents a number of different strategies for solving the quantitative re...

This chapter addresses the problem of the identification of both linear and nonlinear dynamic systems for fault diagnosis. In the case of nonlinear dynamic systems, the identification will be performed by exploiting parametric nonlinear models, such as affine, piecewise‐affine and fuzzy models. Using the concepts of model‐based fault detection, the...

This chapter provides an overview on different fault diagnosis strategies, with particular attention to the fault detection and isolation methods related to the dynamic processes and application examples. Model‐based fault diagnosis methods usually use residuals that indicate changes between the process and the model. The chapter discusses some com...

This document provides the motivations and a brief introduction to the Special Issue entitled “Advanced Control Design and Fault Diagnosis”, which aims at presenting several solutions to the advanced control design and fault diagnosis systems. These methodologies can be considered in the general framework of advanced control, fault diagnosis and fa...

Photovoltaic (PV) generation systems have become part of the electrical distribution networks due to their clean energy and adaptability. The increasing energy consumption and the several load types in the distribution network could produce voltage deviation. Therefore, there are some strategies, which are used to solve this problem, for example, c...

The fault diagnosis of safety critical systems such as wind turbine installations includes extremely challenging aspects that motivate the research issues considered in this paper. In particular, this work studies fault diagnosis solutions that are considered in a viable way and used as advanced techniques for condition monitoring of dynamic proces...

Increasing thermal comfort and reducing energy consumption are two main objectives of advanced HVAC control systems. In this study, a thermal comfort driven control (PTC-DC) algorithm was developed to improve HVAC control systems with no need of retrofitting HVAC system components. A case building located in Izmir Institute of Technology Campus-Izm...

The present research proposes a control method applied to a Wind Power Generation Systems (WEGS) for Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) technique based on a Mamdani Fuzzy observer and complemented by a Proportional and Integral (PI) controller using the Direct Speed Control (DSC). This approach allows commanding the rotor side reference current \(...

In the present work, a control strategy for Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) applied to a wind turbine is described. The electric machine consists of a 1.5MW Doubly Fed Induction Generator (DFIG). This strategy is developed according to the theory of Direct Speed Control (DSC), which includes a state observer. This strategy considers the Low Sha...

Electrical power systems represent a fundamental part of society, and their efficient operations are of vital importance for social and economic development. Power systems have been designed to withstand interruptions under already provided safety and quality principles; however, there are some extreme and not so frequent events that could represen...

The fault diagnosis of safety critical systems such as wind turbine installations includes extremely challenging aspects that motivate the research issues considered in this paper. Therefore, this work investigates two fault diagnosis solutions that exploit the direct estimation of the faults by means of data-driven approaches. In this way, the dia...

The fault diagnosis of safety critical systems such as wind turbine installations includes extremely challenging aspects that motivate the research issues considered in this paper. In fact, the prompt detection and the reliable diagnosis of faults in their earlier occurrence represent the key point especially for offshore installations. For these p...

This paper proposes an adaptive sliding mode observer (ASMO)-based approach for wind turbines subject to simultaneous faults in sensors and actuators. The proposed approach enables the simultaneous detection of actuator and sensor faults without the need for any redundant hardware components. Additionally, wind speed variations are considered as un...

This research proposes a high-performance algorithm for the compression rate of electrical power quality signals, using wavelet transformation. To manage the massive amount of data the telecommunications networks are constantly acquiring it is necessary to study techniques for data compression, which will save bandwidth and reduce costs extensively...

In this In this article, a control strategy for Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) of a wind turbine system based on a Doubly Fed Induction Generator (DFIG) is presented. The proposed strategy consists of the Indirect Speed Control (ISC) taking the Low Speed Shaft (LSS) as variable input. This implementation allows the MPPT to optimize the Power c...

This paper addresses the development of an active fault tolerant control scheme for avionic systems. The methodology is applied to an aircraft longitudinal autopilot taking into account possible faults on the aircraft actuators. The key feature of the proposed control relies on its active characteristics, as the fault diagnosis strategy is based on...

This paper deals with the optimal routing of Electrical Distribution Network in two voltage levels, taking on account the underground implementation in a geo-referenced area, in other words, the conductor must follow the street's route. The model was developed with a heuristic with a graph theory approach. The model was implemented in an area of Fo...

This paper shows a heuristic algorithm for design of a scal-able and reliable distribution networks using real data. The database uses a geographic information system (GIS), which contains the coordinates of households, buildings, streets, parks, etc. The data is used by the algorithm to determine the optimal path for the primary network of medium...

The exploitation of renewable energies has been increasing, and in particular wind and hydro resources, which have to be effectively transformed into electric power by means of viable technology systems. In order to achieve this point, fuzzy control methods can be considered as simple tools that can be used for this aim. The proposed schemes were a...

Cortical responses to external mechanical stimuli recorded by electroencephalography have demonstrated complex nonlinearity with fast dynamics. Hence, the modelling of the human nervous system plays a crucial role in studying the function of the sensorimotor system and can help in disentangling the sensory-motor abnormalities in functional movement...

This paper presents a novel adaptive fault-tolerant neural-based control design for wind turbines with an unknown dynamic and unknown wind speed. By utilizing the barrier Lyapunov function in the analysis of the Lyapunov direct method, the constrained behavior of the system is provided in which the rotor speed, its variation, and generated power re...

This paper presents a novel adaptive fault-tolerant neural-based control design for wind turbines with unknown dynamic and unknown wind speed. By utilizing the barrier Lyapunov function in the analysis of the Lyapunov direct method, the constrained behavior of the system is provided in which the rotor speed, its variation and generated power remain...

This paper introduces a new adaptive Kalman filter for nonlinear systems. The proposed method is an adaptive version of the square-root unscented Kalman filter (Sr-UKF). The presented adaptive square-root unscented Kalman filter (ASr-UKF) is developed to estimate/detect the states of a nonlinear system while noise statistics that affect system meas...

This paper presents an attitude active fault tolerant control for a satellite simulated model. The proposed fault tolerant controller consists of two main parts: a nominal controller, designed assuming that the system is healthy, and a fault diagnosis module which aims at detecting, isolating and estimating the fault affecting the system. The fault...

This paper proposes a three-layer model to find the optimal routing of an underground electrical distribution system, employing the PRIM algorithm as a graph search heuristic. In the algorithm, the first layer handles transformer allocation and medium voltage network routing, the second layer deploys the low voltage network routing and transformer...

Fault diagnosis of wind turbine systems is a challenging process, especially for offshore plants, and the search for solutions motivates the research discussed in this paper. In fact, these systems must have a high degree of reliability and availability to remain functional in specified operating conditions without needing expensive maintenance wor...

The interest in the use of renewable energy resources is increasing, especially towards wind and hydro powers, which should be efficiently converted into electric energy via suitable technology tools. To this end, data-driven control techniques represent viable strategies that can be employed for this purpose, due to the features of these nonlinear...

This study describes a practical methodology for a resilient planning and routing of power distribution networks considering real scenarios based on georeferenced data. Customers’ demand and their location are the basis for distribution transformer allocation considering the minimal construction costs and reduction of utility’s budget. MST (Minimum...

The interest on the use of renewable energy resources is increasing, especially towards wind and hydro powers, which should be efficiently converted into electric energy via suitable technology tools. To this aim, data--driven control techniques represent viable strategies that can be employed for this purpose, due to the features of these nonlinea...

This paper suggests a model-free framework for Fault Detection and Isolation (FDI) of satellite reaction wheels for the first time. The proposed FDI method is based on multi-classifier fusion with diverse learning algorithms and configured in a parallel form where a unique module simultaneously performs both detection and isolation tasks. In other...

The fault diagnosis of wind turbine systems represent a challenging issue, especially for offshore installations, thus justifying the research topics developed in this work. Therefore, this paper addresses the problem of the fault diagnosis of wind turbines, and it present viable solutions of fault detection and isolation techniques. The design of...

This paper presents the development of a physics-based simulation model, aimed at predicting the performance curves of pumps as turbines (PATs) based on the performance curves of the respective pump. The simulation model implements the equations to be used for the estimation of head, power and efficiency for both direct and reverse operation. Model...

The interest on the use of renewable energy resources is increasing, especially towards wind and hydro powers, which should be efficiently converted into electric energy via suitable technology tools. To this aim, self--tuning control techniques represent viable strategies that can be employed for this purpose, due to the features of these nonlinea...

This paper deals with the fault diagnosis of wind turbines and investigates viable solutions to the problem of earlier fault detection and isolation. The design of the fault indicator, i.e., the fault estimate, involves data-driven approaches, as they can represent effective tools for coping with poor analytical knowledge of the system dynamics, to...