Robust Linear Parameter-Varying Control for Multi-Megawatt Wind Turbine Testing

Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Decision & Control, including the Symposium on Adaptive Processes, pp. 2038–2045

Abstract

Wind turbine testing is of great relevance for the wind industry to reduce the levelized cost of energy. For this purpose, hardware-in-the-loop simulators have been developed within the last years and the concept has been validated using multi-megawatt state-of-the-art nacelles. From the experimental experience of several years, different physical phenomena have been identified, which are insufficiently and unsystematically handled by state-of-the-art control algorithms. These effects include multi-physical couplings, nonlinear friction, and periodic disturbances due to unbalanced masses. We analyze the test bench control problem by means of linear parameter-varying (LPV) control theory and arrive at a formulation with the scheduling parameters rotation speed and torque. Based on experimental data, we derive a quasi-LPV plant model for which controller synthesis is conducted. In particular, the superior performance of different self-scheduled dynamic output feedback LPV controllers compared to a standard robust controller is shown. By using parameter-dependent Lyapunov functions, we guarantee both stability and performance with respect to scheduling parameters with a bounded rate of variation. Furthermore, we propose an approach for systematically handling highly dynamic fault cases on a test bench by reconfiguring controller properties through the introduction of fault specific dynamic weighting functions. A converter failure test case is analyzed in simulation to show the benefits of the here proposed controller design.

Authors 3

1. Maximilian Basler Aachen Institute of Automatic Control (IRT)

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   Institute of Automatic Control, RWTH Aachen University, Germany

2. Felix Hruschka Aachen Institute of Automatic Control (IRT)

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   Institute of Automatic Control, RWTH Aachen University, Germany

3. Dirk Abel Aachen Institute of Automatic Control (IRT)

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   Institute of Automatic Control, RWTH Aachen University, Germany