Nonlinear Control of Variable Speed Wind Turbines without wind speed measurement

Abstract

A nonlinear approach, for variable speed wind turbines control, is presented by considering that there is no wind speed measurement. The control objective below rated wind speed is to maximize the extracted energy from the wind while reducing mechanical loads. The existing control techniques do not take into account the dynamical aspect of the wind and the turbine, which leads to significant power losses, besides, they are not robust. In order to bring some improvement and to evaluate the applicability efficiency of the nonlinear controllers, so then, nonlinear static and dynamic state feedback controllers with wind speed estimator are derived. The controllers are tested upon a mathematical model and are validated with a wind turbine simulator, in presence of disturbances and measurement noise. The results indeed show significant improvements in comparison with the existing controllers.