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H position transfer and regulation for floating offshore wind turbines

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Abstract

This paper proposes H controller design for platform position transfer and regulation of floating offshore wind turbines. The platform movability of floating wind turbines can be utilized in mitigating the wake effect in the wind farm, thereby maximizing the wind farm’s total power capture and efficiency. The controller is designed so that aerodynamic force is adjusted to meet the three objectives simultaneously, that is, 1) to generate the desired electrical power level, 2) to achieve the desired platform position, and 3) to suppress the platform oscillation. To acquire sufficient aerodynamic force to move the heavy platform, the pitch-to-stall blade pitching strategy is taken instead of the commonly-used pitch-to-feather strategy. The desired power level is attained by the standard constant-power strategy for the generator torque, while H state-feedback control of blade pitch and nacelle yaw angles is adopted for the position regulation and platform oscillation suppression. Weighting constants for the H controller design are adjusted to take the trade-off between the position regulation accuracy and the platform motion reduction. To demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed controller, a virtual 5-MW semi-submersible wind turbine is considered. Simulation results show that the designed H controller successfully accomplishes the platform position transfer and regulation as well as the platform oscillation reduction against wind and wave disturbances, and that it outperforms a previously-proposed linear quadratic controller with an integrator.

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Correspondence to Ryozo Nagamune.

Additional information

This work was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research of Council of Canada (NSERC) (No. 11R82911) and the National Council of Science and Technology of Mexico (CONACYT).

Eduardo Eribert ESCOBAR AQUINO received the B.Sc. degree from the Autonomous University of Yucatan in Mexico in 2015, and the M.Sc. degree from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, in 2018. His research interests are mechatronics, robotics, controls, and floating offshore wind technology. E-mail: eribert.escobar@outlook.com.

Ryozo NAGAMUNE received the B.Sc. and the M.Sc. degrees in Control Engineering from Osaka University, Japan, in 1995 and 1997, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in Applied Mathematics from the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden, in 2002. From 2003 to 2005, he was a Post-Doctoral Researcher with the University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, U.S.A. In 2013, he was a Visiting Researcher with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, National Wind Technology Center, Golden, CO, U.S.A. He has been with the Department of Mechanical Engineering, the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada, since 2006, where he is currently an Associate Professor. His research interests include robust control, floating offshore wind turbine and farm control, control of solar thermal systems, and automotive engine control.

Dr. Nagamune served as an Associate Editor of ASME Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement, and Control during 2013–2018. He is the Chair of the IEEE Joint Chapter of Control Systems, Robotics, and Automation, and Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Societies in Vancouver Section. He held the Canada Research Chair, Tier 2, in Control Engineering in 2013–2018. He is a registered professional engineer in the province of British Columbia. E-mail: nagamune@mech.ubc.ca.

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Escobar Aquino, E.E., Nagamune, R. H position transfer and regulation for floating offshore wind turbines. Control Theory Technol. 18, 231–245 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11768-020-8280-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11768-020-8280-9

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