Water supply systems are constantly improving their operation through energy efficiency actions that involve the use of advanced measurement, control, and automation techniques. The maintenance and reliability of water distribution is directly associated with hydraulic pressure control. The main challenges encountered in hydraulic pressure control are associated with random changes in the supply plant and the presence of noise and outliers in the sensor measurements. These undesired characteristics cause inefficiency and instability in the control system of the pumping stations. In this scenario, this paper proposes an indirect adaptive control methodology by reference model for modeling and controlling water supply systems. The criterion adopted in the parametric estimation mechanism and the controller adaptation is the Maximum Correntropy. Experimental results obtained with an experimental bench plant showed that the maximum tracking error was 15% during demand variation, percentage overshoot less than 5%, and steady-state error less than 2%, and the control system became robust to noise and outliers. In comparison to the Mean Squared Error criterion, when noise and outliers influence the sensor signal, the proposed methodology stands out, reducing the mean error and the standard deviation, in the worst-case scenario, by more than 1500%. The proposed methodology, therefore, allows for increased reliability and efficiency of an advanced pump control system, avoiding downtime and equipment damage.
Keywords: adaptive system; correntropy; water pumping.