Robust, Gain-scheduled Control of Wind Turbines

Control of wind turbines is about optimising the profit per produced kWh averaged over the lifetime of the wind turbine. One way to this is
by reducing the costs of the wind turbine for its entire lifetime - these costs include development, production and maintenance costs. The other option is to increase power production over the entire wind turbine lifetime. Naturally it can also be a combination of the two.

Availability is a highly competitive parameter for the wind power industry because maintenance typically is expensive, takes time and because faults that stop the wind turbine typically happen when the wind is blowing, i.e. when there is opportunity for power production.

The focus of this project is to investigate the feasibility of the LPV control technique in the context of load reduction and power optimisation on wind turbines. The challenge is to apply the method on medium-scale models since it is based on optimisation algorithms that are numerically very sensitive.