Repetitive Pitch Control for Vertical Axis Wind Turbine

Abstract

Increasing demands in decentralized power plants have focused attention on Vertical Axis Wind Turbines (VAWTs). However, accessing high range of power from VAWTs is an impediment due to increased loads on the turbine blades. Here, we derive an optimal pitching action that reduces the periodic disturbance on turbine blades of VAWTs without affecting their power production. A control technique called Subspace Predictive Repetitive Control (SPRC) alongwith a LQ Tracker is used for recursive identification to estimate the parameters of VAWT model and further provide an optimal control law accordingly. Basis functions have been used to reduce the dimensionality of the control problem. Simulation results show a great potential of the data-driven SPRC approach coupled with LQ Tracker in reducing the turbine loads on VAWTs.