Hardware–In–The–Loop Assessment of Robust Fuzzy Control Solutions for Hydroelectric and Wind Turbine Models

Abstract

The interest towards renewable energy resources is increasing, and in particular it concerns wind and hydro powers, where the key point regards their efficient conversion into electric energy. To this end, control techniques can be used to meet this purpose, especially the ones relying on fuzzy models, due to their capabilities to manage nonlinear dynamic processes working in different conditions, and affected by faults, measurement errors, uncertainty and disturbances. The design methods addressed in this paper were already developed and validated for wind turbine plants, and important results can be achieved from their appropriate design and application to hydroelectric plants. This is the key issue of the paper, which recalls some considerations on the proposed solutions, as well as their validation to these energy conversion systems. Note that works available in the related literature that consider both wind and hydraulic energy conversion systems investigate a limited number of common issues, thus leading to little exchange opportunities and reduced common research aspects. Another important point addressed in the paper is that the proposed control design solutions are able to take into account the different working conditions of these power plants. Moreover, faults, uncertainty, disturbance and model-reality mismatch effects are also considered when analyzing the reliability and robustness features of the derived control schemes. To this end, proper hardware-in-the-loop tools are considered to verify and validate the developed control schemes in more realistic environments.