Spring-resonance-assisted maximal power tracking control of a direct-drive wave energy converter

Abstract

In this paper, to finely accommodate large-range wave frequencies on same sea areas, a spring resonance mechanism is created to facilitate maximal power tracking control of a direct-drive wave energy converter (DWEC) that is expected to be equipped on same sea areas, whereby the spring-resonance-assisted module is devised by mover-coaxial springs and reshapes the resonant-frequency pertaining to a specific spectrum. By virtue of modeling the spring-resonance-assisted DWEC system, a finite-time disturbance observer (FDO) is deployed to rapidly compensate environmental disturbances. Accordingly, the FDO-based integral sliding-mode (ISM) control framework is proposed, to accurately achieve the resonance between the DWEC buoy and wave, thereby contributing to spring-resonance-assisted maximal power tracking control (SR-MPTC) of the DWEC. Simulation studies and comprehensive comparisons demonstrate that the proposed SR-MPTC scheme performs remarkably fast adaptation and accurately maximal power tracking in the presence of disturbances and spring resonance assistance.