Controller Design Automation for Aeroservoelastic Design Optimization of Wind Turbines

The purpose of this paper is to integrate the controller design of wind turbines with structure and aerodynamic analysis and use the final product in the design optimization process (DOP) of wind turbines. To do that, the controller design is automated and integrated with an aeroelastic simulation tool. This integrated tool is linked with an optimization engine. The automated controller has two built-in control algorithms; a generator-torque controller and an above rated pitch-controller. This new tool is used in the DOP of the 5MW NREL research wind turbine. To show how this method works some parameters of both the generatortorque controller and the pitch-controller are introduced as design variables in the DOP. As the result of changing controller related design variables within each optimization iteration, the values of the objective function and the design constraint also change. This shows that by introducing the controller’s parameters as design variables in the DOP a more realistic assessment of the objective function and constraints is possible that helps the optimizer to search for better solutions.