Robust Observer-Based Load Extenuation Control for Wind Turbines

Abstract

Abstract Wind energy is currently the fastest growing electricity source. To meet the output demand, wind turbines are becoming larger and more flexible leading to the problems of structural load especially in case of offshore turbines. Advanced control algorithms are developed to reduce the load, allowing to build larger turbines, and expand their lifetime. Observer-based control algorithms such as Linear-Quadratic-Gaussian LQG control which uses LQR to calculate the optimal observer and controller gains are commonly applied to wind turbines in literature. However the approach requires to calculate the observer and control gains separately. In addition, linear models used for parameter calculation may have errors with respect to the nonlinearities of wind turbines and induced to unmodeled dynamical properties. These modeling errors need to be considered to to guarantee the stability of the controlled system. Alternatively a robust design assuming bounds and limits of models have to be realized to guarantee stability while ignoring details of modeling. This paper proposes an optimal robust observer-based state feedback controller for large-scale wind turbines to realize multi objectives, including structural load mitigation and rotor speed regulation. The novel contribution is that the observer gain parameters, control gains, and integral action are optimized at the same time within H∞ mixed sensitivity framework to achieve desired performance with respect to power regulation, structural load mitigation, and also robustness for the wind turbine control system. The control performances have been verified by a high fidelity simulation software and are compared to those of a classical baseline controller.