Optimal model-free control of solar thermal membrane distillation system

This paper presents a comprehensive optimal control framework for solar thermal membrane distillation systems. We demonstrate how a simple model-free bang-bang controller can be derived from a model predictive control strategy. A detailed analysis of the performance of the proposed bang-bang controller is given and shown to improve performance by up to 50% in some cases. Intuition behind the bang-bang controller and a few case studies are given. (C) 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.