An Experimental Test Setup for Advanced Estimation and Control of an AirborneWind Energy System

Kurt Geebelen (1) , Milan Vukov (1) , Andrew Wagner (1) , Hammad Ahmad (2) , Mario Zanon (1) , Sebastien Gros (1) , Dirk Vandepitte (3) , Jan Swevers , Moritz Diehl (1)

1 ESAT - Department of Electrical Engineering [Leuven]
2 UL - University of Limerick
3 Department of Mechanical Engineering [Leuven]

This chapter gives a detailed description of a test setup developed at KU Leuven for the launch and recovery of unpropelled tethered airplanes. The airplanes are launched by bringing them up to flying speed while attached by a tether to the end of a rotating arm. In the development of the setup, particular care was taken to allow experimental validation of advanced estimation and control techniques such as moving horizon estimation and model predictive control. A detailed overview of the hardware, sensors and software used on this setup is given in this chapter. The applied estimation and control techniques are outlined in this chapter as well, and an analysis of the closed loop performance is given.

Domaines: Optimisation et contrôle [math.OC]

Kurt Geebelen, Milan Vukov, Andrew Wagner, Hammad Ahmad, Mario Zanon, et al.. An Experimental Test Setup for Advanced Estimation and Control of an AirborneWind Energy System. Uwe Ahrens and Moritz Diehl and Roland Schmehl. Airborne Wind Energy, Springer, pp.459-471, 2013, 978-3-642-39964-0. ⟨10.1007/978-3-642-39965-7_27⟩. ⟨hal-00916733⟩