Defesa de Dissertação de Mestrado – Eduardo Fensterseifer Schmidt – 01/09/2017
01/09/2017 17:02
| Defesa de Dissertação de Mestrado | ||
| Aluno | Eduardo Fensterseifer Schmidt | |
| Orientador | Prof. Alexandre Trofino Neto, Dr. – DAS/UFSC | |
| Data | 01/09/2017 (quinta-feira) 14h30
Sala PPGEAS II (piso inferior) |
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| Banca | Prof. Alexandre Trofino Neto, Dr. – Presidente – DAS/UFSC;
Prof. Hector Bessa Silveira, Dr. – DAS/UFSC; Prof. Fábio Baldissera, Dr. – DAS/UFSC; Prof. Marcelo de Lellis Costa de Oliveira, Dr. – PGEEC/UNIOESTE. |
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| Título | A State Estimation Strategy for Monitoring, Control and Optimization of Ariborne Wind Energy Systems | |
| Abstract: Airborne wind energy (AWE) systems harvest wind power by exploiting the aerodynamic forces acting on lightweight suspended structures anchored to the ground by means of one or more tethers. Among other advantages, this technology is able to reach higher altitudes than conventional wind turbines, where the winds are generally stronger and more consistent, while dramatically reducing the construction and installation costs of the power plant. These characteristics allow AWE devices to be deployed virtually anywhere, and have been attracting a lot of interest from both academia and industry. However, despite the promising outlook in terms of economical feasibility, the technology is currently at an intermediate development stage, and there are still several challenges to be overcome before it can reach the market. In the last decade, the problem of control design for AWE generators has been extensively studied, and more recently the optimization of their power yield has also become a concern. Since effective solutions to these problems rely on knowledge of both system parameters and state, reliably estimating these quantities is fundamental for pushing the technology forward. In this context, this thesis presents an estimation strategy for AWE capable of obtaining in real time and from a minimum amount of data the position and velocity of the aircraft, the wind conditions at flight level, and the forces acting upon the system, which can in turn be used to determine its aerodynamic characteristics. The proposed solution is validated in a simulation environment and later tested under actual operating conditions in experiments involving a small scale prototype, with results indicating that it can indeed provide AWE systems with reliable information for the purposes of monitoring, control, and optimization. Finally, the designed estimator are shown to be easily extensible to support other configurations and to accommodate additional measurements, which is highly desirable given the level of maturity of the technology and the variety of experimental setups in use by the community. | ||
