Journal of the Brazilian Society of Mechanical Sciences and Engineering (2018) 40:165

https://doi.org/10.1007/s40430-018-1086-8(0123456789().,-volV)(0123456789().,-volV)

TECHNICAL PAPER

The parameter identification method of steam turbine nonlinear servo

system based on artificial neural network
Jin-Long Liao1 • Feng Yin2 • Zhi-Hao Luo2 • Bo Chen2 • De-Ren Sheng1 • Zi-Tao Yu1

Received: 7 September 2017 / Accepted: 15 February 2018 / Published online: 1 March 2018
Ó The Brazilian Society of Mechanical Sciences and Engineering 2018

Abstract
The servo system in steam turbine digital electric-hydraulic control system (DEH) is affected by nonlinear factors when it
is working. To accurately simulate dynamic characteristics of the DEH, a new nonlinear servo system is proposed, which
has limit, dead zone and correction coefficient caused by unknown factors. The model parameters are divided into linear
parameters and nonlinear parameters to be identified, respectively. Neural networks are used to identify linear parameters.
The nonlinear parameters should be identified according to flow characteristic curve. To verify the validity of the proposed
model and parameter identification method, the actual data of primary frequency control from a 1000 MW Ultra Super-
critical Unit is adopted. Meanwhile, the linear model with no nonlinear factors is used for comparison. Where the fitting
degree of valve opening is 98.445% and power is 96.986%, the output of nonlinear model coincides with actual output
well. Where the relative error of stable result is 5% of valve opening and 1.58% of power, the error of linear model is
larger. The simulation results of the proposed method show that the nonlinear factors of high-power units cannot be ignored
and the nonlinear model of servo system is more accurate.

Keywords Steam turbine  Nonlinear servo system  Parameter identification  Artificial neural network

Abbreviations ft Digital electric-hydraulic control system

ANN Artificial neural network fz Genetic algorithm
BP Back propagation l1 Neural network
DEH Digital electric-hydraulic control system k2 Primary frequency control
GA Genetic algorithm l1 Particle swarm optimization
NN Neural network l2 Radial basis function
PFC Primary frequency control n Ultra-high voltage
PSO Particle swarm optimization s Ultra-high voltage transmission technology
RBF Radial basis function T Primary frequency control
UHV Ultra-high voltage Ty Particle swarm optimization
UHVTT Ultra-high voltage transmission technology Tc Radial basis function
x Ultra-high voltage
List of symbols xmin Ultra-high voltage transmission technology
d1 Artificial neural network xmax Ultra-high voltage transmission technology
d2 Back propagation x* Ultra-high voltage transmission technology

Greek symbols
Technical Editor: Jose A. dos Reis Parise. s Time constant of delay rate(s)
& Zi-Tao Yu
c Parameter vector
yuzitao@zju.edu.cn
Subscripts
1
Institute of Thermal Science and Power Systems, Zhejiang a Output number of neural network
University, Hangzhou 310027, China
b Input number of neural network
2
Electric Power Research Institute of State Grid Zhejiang
Electric Power Company, Hangzhou 310027, China

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1 Introduction
The high-efficiency interconnection and transmission of
the electricity is an important direction for the Energy
Internet. With the increasing of transmission capacity and
distance, the ordinary transmission system will not be able
to meet the demand of electricity transmission in the future.
With the development of the UHVTT, this problem can be
solved step by step. Currently in China, the framework of
the power transmission from west to east was basically
completed by the UHVTT. The power system will be an
internet transmission of more UHV transmission lines.
However, some problems have arisen in UHV operation,
especially the issue of PFC at the UHV access locations.
The original balance of power supplying and consuming
will be broken as a result of the change in the local power
flow caused by the UHV’s joining. On the one hand, we
need to reduce the power generated by local units. On the
other hand, the local units should undertake heavier PFC
tasks since power of the UHV cannot participate in the
PFC. Therefore, it is necessary to make more stable and
accurate PFC adjustment to the thermal power unit. In the
field of the electric production, subject to the high price and
high risk of unit and grid, we usually conduct power sim-
ulation rather than experiment. As we know, when other
conditions are unchanged, power varies with the steam
flow, controlled by the valve opening. So PFC must control
the valve precisely, especially for the high-power units. In
the simulation model, if the response of the valve opening
is not identical to the actual system, the response of power
will be inconsistent with the actual system. In the case of
high parameters of the high-power units, the deviation of
power will be larger and is unacceptable in the precise
simulation research. Therefore, with the coal-burning
generator units developing toward high capacity and high
parameters, high-precision models are needed to study
power simulation.
An accurate model is prerequisite for studying the
dynamic characteristic of the PFC and DEH, especially for
the servo system, working as the main actuator in the DEH.
There are many researches on the DEH and parameter
identification [1, 2]. However, most papers ignored the
influence of nonlinear factors on the servo system model.
To identify parameters expediently, it was allowable and
feasible to simplify these nonlinear factors in the past,
because the effect was not obvious for the low-power units.
Generally speaking, because of the mechanical friction and
certain stroke limiter in the actual servo system, there are
always nonlinear factors such as the dead zone and limit
the nonlinear dynamic characteristics of which were stud-
ied in [3]. An adaptive sliding control method was pre-
sented to weaken the influence of nonlinear factors in [4].
123
The simulation results of valve opening were not accurate
in [5], the main mentioned error comes from the nonlinear
factors by theoretical analysis. In [6], ANN was used to
model steam valve servo system and turbine system
including generator. The linear model with no feedback
was compared with the model containing feedback. As a
result, the former cannot give accurate simulation values
mainly caused by the non-linearity. The latter had a good
performance because the network involves non-linearity.
The above discussion shows that the existence of non-
linear factors in the servo system will have a significant
impact on the performance of the control system, espe-
cially for the high-power units. The main work of this
paper is divided into two parts. In the first part, a more
accurate model of the servo system containing the non-
linear factors is established. In the other part, relevant
parameters in the model are identified. A good parameter
identification method can improve the accuracy of model.
There are many parameter identification methods in vari-
ous fields, such as GA [7, 8], PSO [9, 10], Instrumental
variable [11, 12], Least square [13, 14]. Their respective
characteristics and scope of application are summarized in
[15]. Some improved algorithms have developed the field
of power simulation parameter identification, e.g., In [15],
PSO is used to identify parameters of steam turbine speed
governor system. In [16] ANN is used to identify induc-
tance parameters. A general framework is summarized to
use ANN for the identification and modeling in [17]. To
improve accuracy of simulation for the DEH, a more
accurate servo system model considering limit, dead zone
and correction coefficient produced by unknown nonlinear
factors is proposed. The new nonlinear servo system model
has more parameters and more complicated structure. To
identify model parameters conveniently and accurately, a
new parameter identification method is presented based on
the ANN.
The structure of this paper is as follows: Sect. 2 intro-
duces the proposed parameters identification method. This
section analyzes the model of nonlinear servo system and
discusses the methods of parameter identification. Sec-
tion 3 takes the 1000 MW unit as the research object and
adopts the method proposed in Sect. 2 to identify its
parameters. The data of the primary frequency control is
used to verify the accuracy of the model. Finally, Sect. 4
summarizes the conclusions.
2 Method
2.1 Model of nonlinear servo system
The nonlinear servo system model of 1000 MW Ultra
Supercritical Unit in the DEH is shown in Fig. 1, which
Journal of the Brazilian Society of Mechanical Sciences and Engineering (2018) 40:165 Page 3 of 10 165

Fig. 1 The model of nonlinear Linear part Nonlinear part

servo system
d1
1 1 k1
l2
Input Ty s + 1 Tc s l1
Output
k2
d2

electro-hydraulic hydraulic actuator

converter

consists of a linear part and a nonlinear part. The linear part Nonlinear servo
consists of the transfer function of an electro-hydraulic system
converter and a hydraulic actuator shown in dotted box.
The nonlinear part is composed by the dead zone, limit and Linear part Nonlinear part
Source of
slope. According to the input and output signal, the parameters Not be
Ty Tc l1 k1 d1 l1 k2 d 2 l2
parameters can be identified based on the ‘‘white box’’ triggered
model. τ
The output signal of the hydraulic actuator is the valve Identification Linear parameters Nonlinear parameter
opening. The nature of the signal will not be changed parameters Ty Tc k1 τ d1
through the nonlinear link. In actual system, the valve
opening is greater than zero. So the negative axis of the
Identification Neural network Flow characteristic
nonlinear part will not be triggered. Only the positive axis methods curve
is effective. The physical characteristic of the dead zone l1
presents hysteresis characteristic. This is due to the friction
of mechanical components and joint-clearance of rod and Identification Weights of neural The maximum of
Results network valve opening
hinge, resulting in the transmission of signal is not smooth
and sensitive entirely. So the hysteresis characteristic can
Fig. 3 The parameter identification process
be performed as a delay rate in the simulation. Assuming
the time constant is s, it can be expressed as the first-order
inertia link shown as 1/(ss ? 1), because the value of s is
1.0
very small. The physical characteristic of the limit d1 is the
0.9
amplitude of the moving component, which means the
Steam flow/100%

0.8
biggest valve opening. k1 is the revised value of hydraulic
actuator output due to the influence of other unknown 0.7

nonlinear factors. Through simplifying the nonlinear part 0.6

of original nonlinear servo system, the transformation 0.5
model is shown in Fig. 2. Where the slope of limit link is 1, 0.4
the input u(k) is regulating command and the output y(k) is 0.3
the valve opening. 0.2
According to the above description, in the model of 0.1
nonlinear servo system, all parameters need to be identified 0.0
in the collection h = [Ty, Tc, s, k1, d1]T. Figure 3 presents 0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0 1.1
the parameter identification process. Parameters are split Valve opening/100%
into linear and nonlinear parameters to be identified,
respectively. The linear parameters [Ty, Tc, s, k1]T are Fig. 4 The flow characteristic curve
identified by the ANN on the basis of y(k) without limiting

Fig. 2 The transformational u(k) y(k)

model by simplifying the 1 1 1 d1
nonlinear part from original Input Ty s + 1 Tc s τ s +1
k1 Output
nonlinear servo system
electro-hydraulic hydraulic
converter actuator delay rate revised value limit link

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165 Page 4 of 10 Journal of the Brazilian Society of Mechanical Sciences and Engineering (2018) 40:165

output and its corresponding input u(k). According to
engineering experience, physical characteristic of the
nonlinear parameter d1, i.e., the biggest valve opening,
which is 1 at least. Since the value of excitation signal
should exceed d1 to obtain its output characteristic, it is
difficult and dangerous to identify d1 using the excitation
signal in the normal operation of units. To avoid this
problem, the flow characteristic curve shown in Fig. 4 can
be used to identify d1 rather than the experiment. As a
result, the biggest valve opening is 105%, i.e., d1 is 1.05.
Under the normal thought, the maximal valve opening must
be 100%. However, this researched unit has set the com-
pensation valve; the maximal power can reach 1050 MW
while the nominal power is 1000 MW. Therefore, in the
flow characteristic curve, the valve opens over 100% to
reflect the characteristics of compensation valve.

Fig. 5 The principle of discrete

similarity method. u (t) G (s) y (t)

(a) Continuous model

u * (t) u1* (t)

u (t) Gh (s) G (s) y* (t)
sampler
(b) Discrete model

u(t)
u(t)/u*(t)

continuous

discrete by sampler
u*(t)

t
(c) Continuous input u(t) and discrete input u*(t) produced by sampler

acquired through G(s) from u(t)

y(t)
y(t)/y*(t)

y*(t)
discrete results

t
(d) Continuous output y(t) and discrete output y*(t) acquired by discrete similarity method

123
Journal of the Brazilian Society of Mechanical Sciences and Engineering (2018) 40:165 Page 5 of 10 165

2.2 Discretization of continuous function yðkÞ ¼ ½uðk  1Þ; uðk  2Þ; yðk  1Þ; yðk  2Þ; yðk  3Þ
 ½v1 ; v2 ; n1 ; n2 ; n3 ;T
For the identification of linear parameters, the transfer
ð3Þ
function should be converted into a difference equation
before using the ANN. Compared with the bilinear trans- where v1 ¼ v2 ¼ 2T T sþ2k1 TT T þT s ;
2

formation; discrete similarity method can obtain better y c ðy c cÞ

k1 T 2 þ2Tc T6Ty Tc s4ðTy Tc þTc sÞ
performance. The principle of discrete similarity method is n1 ¼  ;
2Ty Tc sþ2ðTy Tc þTc sÞ
shown in Fig. 5, which transforms the system model into
 
an equivalent discrete model. Where u*(t) is discrete signal k1 T 2 þ 6Ty Tc s þ 2 Ty Tc þ Tc s  2Tc T
from sampling u(t) by sampler, Gh(s) is zero-order hold n2 ¼    ; n3
2Ty Tc s þ 2 Ty Tc þ Tc s
used to transfer u*(t) into the continuous signal u*1(t), which 2Ty Tc s
is used to act on the G(s) to acquire y*(t). The process of ¼  :
2Ty Tc s þ 2 Ty Tc þ Tc s
transforming continuous model into discrete model by
discrete similarity method is shown in Fig. 5c and d. A set of parameters are set randomly to validate the
It is a closed loop transfer function without regard to the effectiveness of this difference equation. The results are
nonlinear parameter d1, which can be ignored when shown in Fig. 6. Simulation curve acquired by the discrete
assuming limit not be triggered. The transfer function of similarity method are almost identical with the numerical
the system is given by Eq. (1): curve of transfer function, indicating that the difference
YðsÞ k1 Eq. (3) is correct.
G1 ðsÞ ¼ ¼   :
UðsÞ Tc Ty ss þ Tc s þ Tc Ty s2 þ Tc s þ k1
3
2.3 Parameter identification based on the neural
ð1Þ network
Where G1(s) is transfer function of system, Y(s) is the
Laplace transform of output, U(s) is the Laplace transform Equation (3) is transformed into Eq. (4) which can be
of the input. The sampler and zero-order hold are used to represented as Eq. (5).
take the continuous model into discrete model, where zero- y ð k Þ ¼ v1 uð k  1Þ þ v 2 uð k  2Þ þ n1 y ð k  1Þ
Ts
order hold is shown as Gh ðsÞ ¼ 1es . T is the sampling þ n2 yðk  2Þ þ n3 yðk  3Þ; ð4Þ
time which should be set far less than the system sampling yðkÞ ¼ F ½uðk  1Þ; uðk  2Þ; yðk  1Þ; yðk  2Þ; yðk  3Þ:
time. The Z transform for the whole model which is given
ð5Þ
as follows:
G1 ðZ Þ ¼ Z ½Gh ðSÞGðSÞ: ð2Þ Extending Eq. (5) to general case, y(k) depends on ya
and ub in the k times, where ya is the output and ub is the
The final difference equation is expressed in Eq. (3). input of system, a and b are constant numbers. As shown in
Fig. 7, the model of three-layer neural network composed
of input layer, hidden layer and output layer, is created by
(a ? b) inputs and one output according with the structure
Ouput in time domain when u(t)=1

1.25

1.00 w12
∑ b12
0.75
Simulation results acquired y2* (k )
1
w
0.50 by discrete similarity method ij

Numerical results of y1* (k )

0.25
transfer function
z 0 z −1 z − β z −1 z −2 z −α
0.00

0 2 4 6 8 10 Servo 1
y1* (k ) =
1 + e− y ( k )
t/s u (k ) system y (k )

Fig. 6 Verification results of difference equation Fig. 7 The model of three-layer neural network

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165 Page 6 of 10 Journal of the Brazilian Society of Mechanical Sciences and Engineering (2018) 40:165
of Eq. (5). The input layer includes the input signal, time
delay signal of input signal and time delay signal of output
signal. The parameters need to be identified; can com-
pletely be replaced by neuron weights. The advantage of
this structure is that the results can converge efficiently in
the neural network training, because the solution must exist
according to the Eq. (4). In addition, the searching space of
optimal solution can be restricted in a small scope depen-
ded on experiences, which contributes to reduce calcula-
tion. Therefore, the convergence speed of training neural
network will be accelerated.
A suitable algorithm needs to be selected to train the NN
while the optimal structure of neural network is deter-
mined. The BP based on gradient descent method is a
typical training algorithm. It has independent learning
ability and it can extract the ‘‘reasonable’’ rules automati-
cally by learning the instance with the correct answer.
However, the training process is often easy to fall into local
optimum using the common algorithm of the BP. The
improved algorithm proposed in [18] is used to train the
neural network in this paper, which can increase the con-
vergence speed and avoid local optimum. The algorithm is
described as follows.
Considering the following system with identification
data filtered and de-noising.
   
A z1 yðkÞ ¼ zd B z1 uðkÞ; ð6Þ
Where u(k) is input, y(k) is output, d is time delay,
Aðz1 Þ ¼ 1 þ a1 z1 þ . . . þ ana zna and Bðz1 Þ ¼
1 nb
b0 þ b1 z þ . . . þ bnb z , na and nb are the order of
A(z-1) and B(z-1), respectively. Equation (6) can be rep-
resented as follows:
yðkÞ ¼ T ðkÞc:
Where:
T ðkÞ ¼ ½yðk  1Þ. . .; yðk  na Þ; uðk  dÞ; . . .uðk  d  nb Þ;
c ¼ ½a1 ; . . .ana ; b0 ; . . .bnb T :
The parameter vector c is estimated by the NN. The first
layer is the input layer and the layer node has no excitation
function. m layer is output layer. l(1 B l B m)layer has nl
nodes. netli(k) is the input of i node in l layer and the output
is Oli(k) while the threshold value is bli(k). wl-1
ji (k) is the link
weights between i node and j node in (l - 1) layer. The
excitation function is g(x(k)). The momentums are repre-
sented as alij and blij, respectively.
The value are determined as m = 3, n2 = 1 and n3 = 1.
The relationship of input layer between input and output is
shown as Eq. (8).
Oli ðkÞ ¼ netil ðkÞ ¼ Ti ðkÞ; 1  i  n1 :
The output of output layer is shown as (9).
123
   
y2 ðkÞ ¼ O3i ¼ w21 g neti2 þ b21 ¼ w21 g w1ij ðkÞTi ðkÞ þ b21 :
ð9Þ
The output y(k) is processed by predistortion and y*1(k) is
taken as reference output.
1
y1 ¼ gðyðkÞÞ ¼ : ð10Þ
1 þ eyðkÞ
The recursive prediction algorithm is used to adjust the
weights and threshold of each layer. More details are
shown in [18]. The connection weights between input layer
and hidden layer are the model parameters need to be
estimated according to the Eqs. (6) and (9). Results are
shown as Eq. (11).
 T
ana ; b^1 ; b^2 . . .b^nb
bc ðkÞ ¼ a^1 ; a^2 . . .^
h iT
¼ w111 ðkÞ; w121 ðkÞ. . .w1n1 1 ðkÞ ð11Þ
According to Eq. (5), the neural network designed to
identify the parameters has five inputs and one output. Of
system input, there are two input signals, the delay signals
u(k - 1) and u(k - 2). Of system output, there are three
input signals, the delay signal y(k - 1), y(k - 2) and
y(k - 3). Therefore, the value of a is three and b is two.
The concrete form of Eq. (11) can be shown as Eq. (12).
So the model parameters can be identified by training the
NN to acquire five weights according to Eq. (12).
h iT
c^ðkÞ ¼ v^1 ; v^2 ; n^1 ; n^2 ; n^3
 T
¼ w111 ðbÞ; w121 ðkÞ; w131 ðkÞ; w141 ðkÞ; w151 ðkÞ : ð12Þ
ð7Þ
3 Implementation
Taking the model of 1000 MW Ultra Supercritical Unit
nonlinear servo system shown in Fig. 1 as the research
object. The data are derived from valve step experiment.
3.1 Data preprocessing
In this subsection, the signal prefiltration and the data
normalization are performed.
1. Signal prefiltration. The data collected from the power
plant, usually contain background noise. To obtain
high-quality sampling data, the noise needs to be
eliminated, which can improve identification precision.
In the DEH, the first-order inertia link and the second
order inertia link both have the function of low pass
filtering. The external signals will be filtered, which
ð8Þ leads to a significant decrease in the amplitude of the
output after the input with noise through these links.
Journal of the Brazilian Society of Mechanical Sciences and Engineering (2018) 40:165 Page 7 of 10 165

x  xmin
The original curve x ¼ : ð13Þ
xmax  xmin
90 Filtering curve
Valve opening/%

80 3.2 Parameter identification

70 The model of the neural network was introduced above.

60
50
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Sampling point
Fig. 8 Original curve and filtering curve of the valve opening
Only the signal within the bandpass can produce
enough output response. To filter these noise and
maintain the character of output response, the Butter-
worth filter is adopted, where the order of filter is 2, the
cut-off frequency of passband is 3 Hz and cut-off
frequency of resistance band is 20 Hz. Original curve
of valve opening and filtering curve obtained by the
Butterworth filter are shown in Fig. 8.
2. Data normalization. In the simulation process, the data
normalization is used to convert the field test data to
dimensionless data ranged from 0 to 1. It can eliminate
the influence of the dimension and the difference.
Formula of the conversion is given as follows:
The sample input is [u(k - 1), u(k - 2), y(k - 1),
y(k - 2), y(k-3)]. The sample output is [y(k)]. To ensure
the sample data correspond to the characteristics of the
system, the training sample are organized in chronological
order. The 600 groups are set as the training sample and
100 groups are set as the testing sample to check the
accuracy of the NN. As shown in Fig. 9, the Q–Q normal
distribution of the residual error shows R [ 99%, i.e., the
correlation of the output of the NN with the fitted curve of
the sample values. It indicates that the result of the NN
training is stable and reliable and the fitting effect is
trustworthy.
An overfitting phenomenon may appear in the process of
training the NN, becoming the contradictions between the
prediction ability and training ability of the NN. Generally
speaking, the prediction ability is bad if the training ability
is poor. The prediction ability will be improved as the
training ability improved to some extent. But this trend is
limited. Once arrived, the prediction ability will fall as the
training ability increased, which is the overfitting phe-
nomenon. So it is necessary to check the prediction accu-
racy of the NN after fitting test to prevent the overfitting,
which may lead to the failure of parameter identification.
Therefore, another 100 groups of data are used to further
validate the model performance. The output obtained by
the NN is compared with the sample output. As shown in
Fig. 10, the predicted error is extended by BPNN between
- 3% and ? 3%, indicating that the NN can well

3
The error of predicting/%

-1

-2

-3
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Predicting samples
Fig. 9 The Q-Q normal distribution of residual error Fig. 10 Error distribution predicted by BP neural network

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4.0 Table 2 Identification results

3.5 Fitting error of RBF
3.0 Parameter Ty/s Tc/s l1/s d1 k1
Predicting error of BP
The average error/%

2.5
2.0 Fitting error of BP Result 0.0203 0.294 0.00293 1.05 1.093
1.5 Reference value 0.01–0.03 0.1–0.5 / / /
1.0
0.5
0.0
-0.5
-1.0
-1.5
-2.0
Power
-2.5
-3.0 GV
-3.5 Given Servo
power PID Turbine
-4.0 system
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500 550 600
Rotate speed
Sampling point 1
δ
Fig. 11 Average error distribution Droop of speed

approximate the model identification. Thus, the parameter
identification can be performed.
The error distribution is shown in Fig. 11, including the
fitting error of the RBF and BP and the predicting error of
the BP. The blue triangle is the fitting error of the BP NN.
The black square is the fitting error of RBF NN. The red
circle is the predicting error of the BP NN. The error dis-
tribution almost overlaps with 0 axis, indicating that the
fitting precision of the RBF is higher than that of the BP
NN. But the predicting error in the test is too big. Due to
the overabundance of the hidden layer neurons in the
training of RBF network, overfitting phenomenon happens,
i.e., that training ability is too strong. So when the new
testing sample is input, the deviation between output and
the expected value is too big. Originally we wanted to use
the BP NN to make a comparison with the RBF NN, but
the unexpected phenomenon occurred and the problem
could not be solved restricted by our current programming
and algorithm ability. However, it has no impact on the
parameter identification and we will continue studying to
solve it in the following research.
4 Results
The linear and nonlinear parameters are identified sepa-
rately. The nonlinear parameters are [d1]T. It was acquired
by the flow characteristic curve and the value is 1.05. The
linear parameters are [Ty, Tc, s, k1]T which are identified by
Table 1 Weights of neural network
Weight w111 ðkÞ w121 ðkÞ w131 ðkÞ
Result 0.0000798 0.0000801 1.96
Fig. 12 Principle of PFC
the NN. The process is stated above. The weights of the
 T
NN w111 ðkÞ; w121 ðkÞ; w131 ðkÞ; w141 ðkÞ; w151 ðkÞ are shown in
Table 1. The sampling time T in discrete similarity method
is set to 0.001 s. According to the Eq. (3), the final iden-
tification results are provided by MATLAB software, as
shown in Table 2. The identification results are in the
reference value range.
4.1 Verification
Furthermore, the results can be verified by the PFC.
Figure 12 gives the principle of the PFC, which is used
to eliminate the load disturbance rapidly. It changes the
power of units by opening or closing the valve in a short
time which looks like a valve step disturbance. So the
data obtained from the PFC can be used to verify the
accuracy of the results. If the output of model is con-
sistent with the actual signal, it can be judged that the
identification result is correct and reliable. In addition,
the model without nonlinear factors is created to make a
contrast in the same way. The results are shown in
Fig. 13. Figure 13a is the variation of valve opening
curves and Fig. 13b is the variation of power curves on
the PFC. As can be seen, the output of nonlinear model
is almost in perfect accordance with the actual output.
However, the linear model without nonlinear factors
gives low accuracy, in which with a relative valve
opening error of 5% and the relative power error of
1.58%. Although the relative power error is low, the
accuracy of PFC cannot be ignored because of the big
w141 ðkÞ w151 ðkÞ
absolute error 15 MW. The formula shown in (14) can
- 0.962 0.00255 be used to calculate the fitting precision.

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84 5 Conclusions
Actual
82 Nonlinear
In this paper, the nonlinear servo system of the DEH and
Valve opening/100%

Linear
80 the method of its parameters identification are studied. The
78 main contribution of this paper lies in two aspects. First,
the work focused on providing a more accurate servo
76
system model which contains the nonlinear factors
74 including dead-band, limit and correction coefficient. It is
72 necessary for the PFC of high-power units based on the
background of the UHV. The simulation results by this
70
nonlinear servo system model show higher accuracy than
68 the linear model without considering the nonlinear factors.
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 Second, the new method of parameter identification is
Sampling point proposed based on the special ANN. The structure of the
(a) Variation of valve opening curves NN is designed to match form of the difference equation,
which is transformed by the discrete similarity method. By
950
Actual limiting the searching scope of the optimal solution, the
Nonlinear training time can be reduced. The improved training
940 Linear algorithm is used to avoid local convergence, thus the
existence of the solution according to the difference
Power/MW

930
equation can guarantee optimal convergence.
920 In the current work, some simplified processes are still
used for the unknown nonlinear factors. The correction
910 coefficient is adopted to reflect the effect of unknown
nonlinear factors on output. To further improve the model
900 of the high-power units, the following researches can focus
on excavating and modeling the specific feature of
890
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 unknown nonlinear dynamics.
Sampling point Acknowledgements This research was supported by the Electric
Power Research Institute of State Grid Corporation of China in
(b) Variation of power curves Zhejiang province.

Fig. 13 Comparison between simulation output and real output.

sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi3
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