Rapid control prototyping of model predictive wind turbine control toward field testing

Abstract

Wind turbine technology has a great demand for advanced control strategies that deal with multiple objectives simultaneously. Model predictive control (MPC) is a strong candidate for modern wind turbine control (WTC). While the design of model predictive wind turbine controllers in simulations has been extensively investigated in academic studies, the application of these controllers to real wind turbines reveals open research challenges. In this work, we address the systematic development of MPC systems for wind turbines. Based on the rapid control prototyping (RCP) methodology, we propose a comprehensive development environment for designing and testing such control systems in system simulations, software-in-the-loop (SiL) and hardware-in-the-loop (HiL) tests. We use a continuous tool chain from the MATLAB/Simulink environment to the wind turbine’s programmable logic controller (PLC) hardware. This study provides an example of how to prepare an MPC algorithm for tests in a real 3 MW wind turbine by demonstrating control operation over the entire operation range in system simulations and SiL tests as well as verifying the MPC’s real-time feasibility in the wind turbine’s PLC in HiL tests.