Spectral control of wave energy converters with non-ideal power take-off systems

Abstract

Spectral control is an accurate and computationally efficient approach to power-maximising control of wave energy converters (WECs). This work investigates spectral control calculations with explicit derivative computation, applied to WECs with non-ideal power take-off (PTO) systems characterised by an efficiency factor smaller than unity. To ensure the computational efficiency of the spectral control approach, it is proposed in this work to approximate the discontinuous efficiency function by means of a smooth function. A non-ideal efficiency function implies that the cost function is non-quadratic, which requires a slight generalisation of the derivative-based spectral control approach, initially introduced for quadratic cost functions. This generalisation is derived here in some detail given its practical interest. Two application case studies are considered: the Wavestar scale model, employed for the WEC control competition (WECCCOMP), and the 3rd reference model (RM3) two-body heaving point absorber. In both cases, with the approximate efficiency function, the spectral approach calculates WEC trajectory and control force solutions, for which the mean electrical power is shown to lie within a few percent of the true optimal electrical power. Regarding the effect of a non-ideal PTO efficiency upon achievable power production, and concerning heaving point-absorbers, the results obtained are significantly less pessimistic than those of previous studies: the power achieved lies within 80–95% of that obtained by simply applying the efficiency factor to the optimal power with ideal PTO.