On-line fatigue alleviation for wind turbines by a robust control approach

Abstract This paper proposes a sliding-mode based robust control technique aimed at fatigue alleviation of a Wind Energy Conversion System (WECS). The control architecture incorporates an on-line fatigue estimator, which can be used as a virtual sensor of the fatigue damage in the feedback control loop. This virtual sensor allows to evaluate and predict the potential fatigue damage by on-line processing signals such as the tower top acceleration (typical experimental acquisition) or the tower base bending moment (typical numerical measure). The output of the fatigue virtual sensor is fed to a robust controller aimed at reducing loads of the wind turbine components, and consequently fatigue stresses, by properly modulating the pitch angle. The proposed control solution has been validated on the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) 5-MW three-blade wind turbine model.

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