Flight phase control strategies for airborne wind energy systems

Warnock, John and McMillan, David and Tabor, Samuel (2018) Flight phase control strategies for airborne wind energy systems. In: WindEurope Conference & Exhibition 2018, 2018-09-25 - 2018-09-28.

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Abstract

Traditional Danish concept wind turbines face many constraints when upscaling in order to access higher wind speeds, such as size, mechanical loading and weight. It is possible that some of these constraints could be circumvented through use of airborne wind energy systems (AWES). With research into AWES becoming more prominent, the topic of launching and landing the system must be analysed in detail. Currently several concepts are being pursued with differing launch and land technologies. For all systems it is likely that minimising launch and land cycles will be a key objective due to increased energy costs and hardware risk in these phases. This research focuses on a cross-wind ground-based generation system and discusses the problem of the launch and land policy with regards to the wind speed at operational height. The paper also discusses the use of an airborne powered loiter phase and a grounded waiting phase. A key consideration when analysing this problem is wind speed measurement uncertainty (including the degree of temporal averaging) and how to integrate this uncertainty into any launch & land policy. The present research concerns cost-benefit analysis with respect to generated and consumed energy cost functions for each flight phase. It is found that for any given AWES there will be an optimum airborne loiter time after which a system should be landed. This avoids landings due to short-duration low wind periods. This research will be followed up by further analysis of additional cost functions such as reliability and failure aspects associated with each of the above phases. Further research will also consider the impact of short term forecasting of various accuracy levels on the optimal control policy and performance of AWES.

ORCID iDs

Warnock, John ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2819-5757, McMillan, David ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3030-4702 and Tabor, Samuel;
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)