학술논문

Experimental Testing of a Preview-Enabled Model Predictive Controller for Blade Pitch Control of Wind Turbines
Document Type
Periodical
Source
IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology IEEE Trans. Contr. Syst. Technol. Control Systems Technology, IEEE Transactions on. 30(2):583-597 Mar, 2022
Subject
Signal Processing and Analysis
Communication, Networking and Broadcast Technologies
Computing and Processing
Robotics and Control Systems
Wind turbines
Blades
Rotors
Testing
Computational modeling
Torque
Generators
Feedforward (FF) control
real-time model predictive control (MPC)
wind energy
wind turbines
Language
ISSN
1063-6536
1558-0865
2374-0159
Abstract
Model predictive control (MPC) is a control method that involves determining the input to a dynamical system as the solution to an optimization problem that is solved online. In the wind turbine research literature, MPC has received considerable attention for its ability to handle both actuator constraints and preview disturbance information about the oncoming wind, which can be provided by a lidar scanner. However, while many studies simulate the wind turbine response under MPC, very few physical tests have been carried out, likely due in part to the difficulties associated with solving the MPC problem in real time. In this work, we implement MPC on an experimental, scaled wind turbine operating in a wind tunnel testbed, using an active grid to create reproducible wind sequences and a hot-wire anemometer to generate upstream wind measurements. To our knowledge, this work presents the first physical test of MPC for blade pitch control of a scaled wind turbine. We compare two MPC strategies: one including preview disturbance information and one without. Our results provide further evidence that feedforward control can improve wind turbine performance in transition and above-rated conditions without increasing actuation requirements, which we hope will encourage industry experimentation and uptake of feedforward control methods. We also provide a high-level analysis and interpretation of the computational performance of the chosen approach. This work builds upon the results of an earlier study, which considered unconstrained optimal blade pitch control.