• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.20 no.9
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• pp.922-929
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• 2014

Wind turbines are in the limelight in the alternative energy industry. However, they face frequent and various problems during operation. We focused on the supervising of the blades of a wind turbine. In this paper, we present the design of a maintenance robot that takes the size of wind turbine blades into consideration, so the general form of the robot is a square with four wires fixed to its vertices and to the nacelle. After the robot is placed near the nacelle, it moves along the blades. We also designed an attitude control algorithm for the robot to maintain its balance. Our control algorithm for the robot consists of roll and pitch attitude controllers and a height controller. Each controller was designed independently and then superposed together. We used simulations to verify our control algorithm.

• Journal of international Conference on Electrical Machines and Systems
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.478-485
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• 2013

This paper focuses on the design and control of a new concept for wind turbines with a planetary gearbox to realize a power split. This concept, where the generated wind power is split into two parts, is to increase the utilization of the wind power and may be particularly suitable for large scale off-shore wind turbines. In order to reduce the cost of the power electronic devices, a synchronous generator, which is driven by the planetary gear, is directly connected to the power grid without electronic converter. A servo drive, which functions as the control actuator, is connected to the power grid by a power electronic converter. With small scale power electronic device, the current harmonics can also be reduced. The speed of the main shaft is controlled to track the optimal tip speed ratio. Meanwhile the speed of the synchronous generator is controlled to stay at the synchronous speed. The minimum rated power of the servo motor and the converter, is studied and discussed in this paper. Different variants of the wind turbine with a planetary gear are also compared. The controller for optimal tip speed ratio and synchronous speed tracking is given.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Industry Convergence
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• v.24 no.4_2
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• pp.443-451
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• 2021

It is essential to examine and analyze the power output and load responses together using real-world turbulent wind speeds. In this paper, the power controller and the drive train damper are simultaneously considered using the NREL 5MW wind turbine model, and the damage equivalent load(DEL) of the low speed shaft torque and power output responses according to the natural frequency of the second order low pass filter are simultaneously investigated. Numerical testing is carried out above rated wind speed using commercially available Bladed software. From the viewpoints of DEL reduction of the drive train shaft torque and power output responses, it is shown that the natural frequency of the low pass filter is appropriately about 6 to 10rad/s. And the reduction ratio of the DEL of the low-speed shaft torque decreases as the wind speed becomes higher, and it is confirmed that the reduction ratio is limited to about 20% at high wind speeds.

• Journal of IKEEE
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.225-231
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• 2015

The parameter K which decides how much to convert wind energy to electric energy in MPPT(maximum power point tracking) control of wind turbine system using torque controller is changed because blade shape and air density change. If the parameter K is not optimal value, power lose occur. The changed parameter K is important issue in wind turbine system. In this paper, to solve this problem, considering wind turbine system using back-to-back converter control and torque control, we propose the adaptive MPPT algorithm which performs fast control by using initial K, estimates mechanical power using Kalman filter method, uses the estimated mechanical power as input for MPPT algorithm again, and consequently performs optimal MPPT control.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2001.05a
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• pp.159-161
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• 2001

This study is for the pitch control of blade, used in most horizontal-axis wind turbine systems, to sustain the maximum power output supplied to grid. The control of a blade can be divided into a stall regulation and a pitch control methods. The stall regulation method using an aerodynamic stall is simple and cheap, but it suffers from fluctuation of the resulting power. Pitch control method is mechanically and mathematically complicated, but the control performance is better than that of the stall regulation method. In this paper 2.5MW MOD-2 wind turbine system is adopted to be controlled by a pitch controller with PI method. The simulation performed by MA TLAB will show the variation of frequency, generator output, and pitch angle.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2015.07a
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• pp.1058-1059
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• 2015

This paper describes a low-voltage ride-through method for the permanent magnet synchronous generator (PMSG) wind turbine system at a grid fault. The generator side converter regulates the DC link voltage instead of the grid side converter by storing the surplus active power in the rotor inertia during grid fault by the sliding mode controller. The grid side converter controls the grid active power keeping a maximum power point tracking. Simulation results for small scale PMSG wind turbine verify the efficiency of the control method.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.614-622
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• 2010

This paper presents a control method, which reduces the pulsating torque and DC voltage problems of a doubly fed induction generator (DFIG)-based wind turbine system. To reduce the torque and power ripple, a current control scheme consisting of a proportional integral (PI) controller is presented in a positive synchronously rotating reference frame, which is capable of providing precise current control for a rotor-side converter with separated positive and negative components. The power theory can reduce the oscillation of the DC-link voltage in the grid-side converter. In this paper, the generator model is examined, and simulation results are obtained with a 3 kW DFIG-based wind turbine system to verify the proposed control strategy.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.75-92
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• 2016

The design of a semi-active (SA) control system addressed to mitigate wind induced structural demand to high wind turbine towers is discussed herein. Actually, the remarkable growth in height of wind turbines in the last decades, for a higher production of electricity, makes this issue pressing than ever. The main objective is limiting bending moment demand by relaxing the base restraint, without increasing the top displacement, so reducing the incidence of harmful "p-delta" effects. A variable restraint at the base, able to modify in real time its mechanical properties according to the instantaneous response of the tower, is proposed. It is made of a smooth hinge with additional elastic stiffness and variable damping respectively given by springs and SA magnetorheological (MR) dampers installed in parallel. The idea has been physically realized at the Denmark Technical University where a 1/20 scale model of a real, one hundred meters tall wind turbine has been assumed as case study for shaking table tests. A special control algorithm has been purposely designed to drive MR dampers. Starting from the results of preliminary laboratory tests, a finite element model of such structure has been calibrated so as to develop several numerical simulations addressed to calibrate the controller, i.e., to achieve as much as possible different, even conflicting, structural goals. The results are definitely encouraging, since the best configuration of the controller leaded to about 80% of reduction of base stress, as well as to about 30% of reduction of top displacement in respect to the fixed base case.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.195-203
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• 2018

In the variable speed Wind Turbine based on ElectroMagnetic Coupler (WT-EMC), a synchronous generator is coupled directly to the grid. Therefore, like conventional power plants, WT-EMC is able to inherently support grid frequency. However, due to the reduced inertia of the synchronous generator, WT-EMC is expected to be controlled to increase its output power in response to a grid frequency drop to support grid frequency. Similar to the grid frequency support control of Type 3 or Type 4 wind turbine, inertial control and droop control can be used to calculate the WT-EMC additional output power reference according to the synchronous generator speed. In this paper, an experimental platform is built to study the grid frequency support from WT-EMC with inertial control and droop control. Two synchronous generators, driven by two induction motors controlled by two converters, are used to emulate the synchronous generators in conventional power plants and in WT-EMCs respectively. The effectiveness of the grid frequency support from WT-EMC with inertial control and droop control responding to a grid frequency drop is validated by experimental results. The selection of the grid frequency support controller and its gain for WT-EMC is analyzed briefly.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.257-262
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• 2018

Vibrational problems in the domestic Small Horizontal Axis Wind Turbines (SHAWT) are due to flap wise vibrations caused by varying wind velocities acting perpendicular to its blade surface. It has been reported that monitoring the structural health of the turbine blades requires special attention as they are key elements of a wind power generation, and account for 15-20% of the total turbine cost. If this vibration problem is taken care, the SHAWT can be made as commercial success. In this work, Shape Memory Alloy (SMA) wires made of Nitinol (Ni-Ti) alloys are embedded into the Glass Fibre Reinforced Polymer (GFRP) wind turbine blade in order to reduce the flapwise vibrations. Experimental study of Nitinol (Ni-Ti) wire characteristics has been done and relationship between different parameters like current, displacement, time and temperature has been established. When the wind turbine blades are subjected to varying wind velocity, flapwise vibration occurs which has to be controlled continuously, otherwise the blade will be damaged due to the resonance. Therefore, in order to control these flapwise vibrations actively, a non-linear current controller unit was developed and fabricated, which provides actuation force required for active vibration control in smart blade. Experimental analysis was performed on conventional GFRP and smart blade, depicted a 20% increase in natural frequency and 20% reduction in amplitude of vibration. With addition of active vibration control unit, the smart blade showed 61% reduction in amplitude of vibration.