Open AccessOptimal blade pitch control with realistic preview wind measurements
Author(s) -
Dunne Fiona,
Pao Lucy Y.
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
wind energy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.743
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 1099-1824
pISSN - 1095-4244
DOI - 10.1002/we.1973
Subject(s) - blade pitch , pitch control , wind speed , turbine , feed forward , controller (irrigation) , control theory (sociology) , rotor (electric) , accelerometer , coherence (philosophical gambling strategy) , wind power , computer science , pitch angle , simulation , engineering , control (management) , control engineering , aerospace engineering , mechanical engineering , physics , meteorology , electrical engineering , artificial intelligence , agronomy , quantum mechanics , geophysics , biology , operating system
In above‐rated wind speeds, the goal of a wind turbine blade pitch controller is to regulate rotor speed while minimizing structural loads and pitch actuation. This controller is typically feedback only, relying on a generator speed measurement, and sometimes strain gages and accelerometers. A preview measurement of the incoming wind speed (from a turbine‐mounted lidar, for example) allows the addition of feedforward control, which enables improved performance compared with feedback‐only control. The performance improvement depends both on the amount of preview time available in the wind speed measurement and the coherence between the wind measurement and the wind that is actually experienced by the turbine. We show how to design a collective‐pitch optimal controller that takes both of these factors into account. Simulation results show significant improvement compared with baseline controllers and are well correlated with linear model‐based results. Linear model‐based results show the benefit of preview measurements for various preview times and measurement coherences. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.