Wind energy is a renewable source power which can be used to provide both mechanical and electrical energy by means of a wind system. It is pollutants-free and its viability is proven. These features, in the last few years, make the wind energy generation very attractive and, consequently, there has been to a rapid enhancement in terms of wind turbine technology.

The wind turbine, driving an electrical generator, converts mechanical energy into electrical energy. Usually, in order to generate voltage with appropriate amplitude and frequency, a rectifier-inverter solid state component is employed. This solution utilizes only passive components (no active control), but, on the other hand, it implies energy losses associated to the power electronics. Such drawbacks can be overcome with the adoption of an active control system which, ensures the correct voltage amplitude and frequency values without virtually any energy loss. The wind system considered in the present paper is composed by a three blades horizontal-axis variable-pitch wind turbine and a synchronous electrical generator. Appropriate mathematical models of both the wind system components have been taken into account. Specifically, the mathematical model of the horizontal axis wind turbine is based on a stream tube discretization, where the momentum conservation in both the axial and tangential directions has been applied. On the other hand, the governing differential equations of the synchronous electrical generator have been written in a fixed axis reference system, d − q considering a balanced generator windings together with balanced external load.

Generally, classical controls algorithms applied to wind systems need an analytical model of the controlled sys- tem (e.g. transfer function, differential or finite difference equations). Nevertheless, the controlled system is often known only in terms of maps and/or numerical/experimental data. Therefore the controller parameters need several empirical adjustments in order to perform adequately. On the contrary, adaptive control algorithms regard the con- trolled system as a black box and the control law is evaluated performing an estimation of the controlled system. These controllers, although can be very accurate, usually implies a complex implementation. The control algorithm proposed in this work is based on a Fuzzy Logic approach that, due to its non-analytical structure, presents few advan- tages: it can be designed exploiting numerical/experimental data (no analytical knowledge of the controlled system is required); it can be straightforward scaled or updated by just varying the base of rules (no re-design process is needed). Furthermore, the proposed fuzzy logic controller is able to build the fuzzy logic rule base taking into account only a limited set of working points (input-output pairs) that can be provided by numerical simulation and/or experimental data. This in turn translates in a straightforward design procedure of the control algorithm


Data-Tuned Fuzzy Logic Controller Applied to a Horizontal Axis Wind System

Division / Sponsor:
International Gas Turbine Institute (IGTI)

Paper Proceedings: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/GT/GT2020/volume/84058

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