The hydraulic cylinder is used for actuating the sluice gate which controls the volume of water in the reservoir. The locating points of hydraulic cylinder are restricted to limited space and determined to minimize the cylinder force necessary for actuating the sluice gate. Generally, the head end point of cylinder is fixed at underground and the rod end point of cylinder is connected to the gate plate when it is fully opened. Therefore there exist three parameters to be determined to minimize the cylinder force in the operation range of sluice gate. The optimal locating points of hydraulic cylinder are obtained using the complex method that is one kind of constrained direct search m method.