Feedforward Pitch Research Articles

Performance similarities between standard and retrofit LiDAR-assisted control for wind turbines

LiDAR-assisted control has proven to be a highly effective method for mitigating rotor speed deviations and reducing loads in wind turbines. This effectiveness stems from the ability of feedforward controllers to utilize incoming wind speed information obtained from LiDARs, enabling advanced blade pitch actions before the wind disturbs the turbine. However, the standard implementation of LiDAR-assisted control often necessitates modifications to the existing feedback controller, where the feedforward pitch rate is typically integrated into the feedback controller. This process can be challenging in terms of accessibility and may be limited to specific stakeholders, such as turbine manufacturers.A retrofit design provides an ideal solution, where the retrofit LiDAR-assisted controller modifies the rotor speed measurement to induce pitch actions without requiring alterations to the existing feedback controller. This paper aims to demonstrate the performance similarities between the standard LiDAR-assisted controller and its retrofit counterpart. Specifically, we establish that the retrofit LiDAR-assisted controller, with appropriate tuning, is equivalent to its standard counterpart. This equivalence implies that architecturally dissimilar controllers can yield the same performance in terms of rotor speed deviations and tower load reductions. The presented findings are supported by results obtained from high-fidelity closed-loop turbine simulations.

Analysis and evaluation of two reference LiDAR-assisted control designs for wind turbines

LiDAR-assisted wind turbine control holds promise in reducing structural loads and enhancing rotor speed regulation. However, a research gap exists in the practicality and limitations of commercially available fixed-beam LiDARs for large turbines and evaluating commonly employed LiDAR-assisted feedforward approaches. This study addresses these gaps by examining the implications of utilizing fixed-beam LiDARs in two wind turbine sizes and two reference LiDAR-assisted control strategies. A comprehensive evaluation considers coherence variations, uncertainties related to inaccurate pitch angle mapping with the upcoming wind speed, and their combined impact on load reduction. Numerical simulations reveal that an excessively low cut-off frequency in the low-pass filter can compromise preview time compensation. This is problematic in larger turbines, where coherence with limited LiDAR beams is inferior compared to smaller wind turbines, which deteriorates the effectiveness of the LiDAR-assisted control. Among the reference LiDAR-assisted control methods, the evaluation indicates the Schlipf approach has greater load reduction independence, while Bossanyi’s approach, which uses measurement of current blade pitch, yields positive results with fine-tuned baseline controllers. However, allowing baseline controller-induced frequencies to propagate into the controller may increase system excitation at certain frequencies due to the use of the actual pitch angle for feedforward pitch rate calculation.

Feedforward pitch control for a 15 MW wind turbine using a spinner-mounted single-beam lidar

Abstract. Feedforward blade pitch control is one of the most promising lidar-assisted control strategies due to its significant improvement in rotor speed regulation and fatigue load reduction. A high-quality preview of the rotor-effective wind speed is a key element of control benefits. In this work, a single-beam lidar is simulated in the spinner of a bottom-fixed IEA 15 MW wind turbine. Both continuous-wave (CW) and pulsed lidar systems are considered. The single-beam lidar can rotate with the wind turbine rotor and scan the inflow with a circular pattern, which mimics a multiple-beam nacelle lidar at a lower cost. Also, the spinner-based lidar has an unimpeded view of the inflow without intermittent blockage from the rotating blade. The focus distance and the cone angle of the spinner-based single-beam lidar are optimized for the best wind preview quality based on a rotor-effective wind speed coherence model. Then, the control benefits of using the optimized spinner-based lidar are evaluated for an above-rated wind speed in OpenFAST with an embedded lidar simulator and virtual four-dimensional Mann turbulence fields considering the wind evolution. Results are compared against those using a single-beam nacelle-based lidar. We found that the optimum scanning configurations of both CW and pulsed spinner-based single-beam lidars lead to a lidar scan radius of 0.6 of the rotor radius. Also, results show that a single-beam lidar mounted in the spinner provides many more control benefits (i.e. better rotor speed regulations and higher reductions in the damage equivalent loads on the tower base and blade roots) than the one based on the nacelle. The spinner-based single-beam lidar has a similar performance to a four-beam nacelle lidar when used for feedforward control.

On LiDAR-assisted wind turbine retrofit control and fatigue load reductions

The use of upstream wind speed measurement has motivated the development of LiDAR-assisted control for enhancing rotor speed tracking and fatigue structural load reductions. However, conventional LiDAR-assisted control designs often require altering the existing controller architecture, for example, by sending an additional feed-forward pitch angle signal to the pitch actuator or by incorporating the feed-forward pitch rate into the feedback controller. This work proposes LiDAR-assisted retrofit control solutions that can be implemented without any prior knowledge or modifications of the existing feedback controller. Specifically, the feed-forward pitch action is provoked by modifying the rotor speed measurement. Three retrofit methods are proposed according to the level of retrofit requirement and complexity. Numerical simulation results showed that all three LiDAR-assisted retrofit solutions could achieve good thrust-related load reductions. Thus, the proposed LiDAR-assisted retrofit solutions present a simple control upgrade to extend the lifetime of existing turbines.

Continuous grid frequency support with variable synthetic inertia and feedforward pitch angle adjustment

Grid frequency support by wind turbines is increasingly demanded by grid operators around the globe. By meeting these requirements, the wind turbines leave their optimal operating point and may even be pushed out of their safe operating range during severe grid events. In the past years, the Wind Energy Technology Institute developed a controller for grid frequency support in collaboration with Suzlon Energy. This work seeks to improve this controller by adding a pitch angle adjustment depending on the operating point of the wind turbine and the power adjustment for grid support. The controller performance is analysed for three scenarios and for the whole operating range of the NREL 5 MW WT. Simulations show, that the adjustment lowers the risk for overspeed at the cost of an increased pitch rate. By contrast, the aerodynamic efficiency is not increased by the additional control loop. The effect on the tower depends heavily on the wind situation during and shortly after the grid frequency support event.

Fluctuating characteristic and power smoothing strategies of WECS

The electric power output of the wind energy conversion system (WECS) fluctuates owing to the inherent feature of the wind speed, which do harm not only to the power grid it connected into, but also to the lifetime of power converters. The electric power fluctuation characteristic of WECS is analysed in frequency domain under overall wind speed to facilitate the planning of distribution grids and to reveal the key factors influencing power fluctuation under different operation modes. The analysis results are well-validated by detailed simulations. On the basis of power fluctuation characteristic analysis, the power-smoothing schemes are carried out in different operation modes. In variable-speed mode, an enhanced optimal torque control is proposed for power smoothing. In constant-speed mode, the control bandwidth of speed loop or the slope of look-up table is decreased to smooth the electric power, and a feed-forward pitch control is proposed to prevent the wind turbine from exceeding safe speed. In constant-power mode, the suggested power-smoothing scheme is worked out. The analysis results and the proposed control schemes are verified by refined co-simulation platform based on GH bladed and real-time digital simulator.

Nacelle LiDAR online wind field reconstruction applied to feedforward pitch control

This paper presents innovative filtering and reconstruction techniques of nacelle LiDAR data, and exploitation of obtained wind anticipation capabilities for wind turbine control strategy. The implemented algorithms are applied under industrial constraints, on a MAIA EOLIS wind turbine, equipped with a LEOSPHERE 5-beams pulsed LiDAR, during experimental campaigns of SMARTEOLE collaborative project.

A Five-Parameter Wind Field Estimation Method Based onSpherical Upwind Lidar Measurements

Turbine mounted scanning lidar systems of focussed continuous-wave type are taken into consideration to sense approaching wind fields. The quality of wind information depends on the lidar technology itself but also substantially on the scanning technique and reconstruction algorithm. In this paper a five-parameter wind field model comprising mean wind speed, vertical and horizontal linear shear and homogeneous direction angles is introduced. A corresponding parameter estimation method is developed based on the assumption of upwind lidar measurements scanned over spherical segments. As a main advantage of this method all relevant parameters, in terms of wind turbine control, can be provided. Moreover, the ability to distinguish between shear and skew potentially increases the quality of the resulting feedforward pitch angles when compared to three-parameter methods. It is shown that minimal three measurements, each in turn from two independent directions are necessary for the application of the algorithm, whereas simpler measurements, each taken from only one direction, are not sufficient.

Feedforward Pitch Control Using Wind Speed Estimation

The dynamic response of a multi-MW wind turbine to a sudden change in wind speed is usually slow, because of the slow pitch control system. This could cause a large excursion of the rotor speed and an output power over the rated. A feedforward pitch control can be applied to minimize the fluctuations of these parameters. This paper introduces the complete design steps for a feedforward pitch controller, which consist of three stages, i.e. the aerodynamic torque estimation, the 3-dimensional lookup table for the wind seed estimation, and the calculation of the feedforward pitch amount. The effectiveness of the feedforward control is verified through numerical simulations of a multi-MW wind turbine.