Analysis and optimal individual pitch control decoupling by inclusion of an azimuth offset in the multi-blade coordinate transformation

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel azimuth offset in the multi-blade coordinate transformation to decouple axes in wind turbine pitch control, enabling simpler control strategies and reducing blade fatigue loads.

Contribution

It proposes a new method for decoupling non-rotating axes in wind turbine control by including an azimuth offset, simplifying control design.

Findings

Decoupling improves with azimuth offset inclusion.

SISO controllers are effective for the decoupled system.

Load reductions are achieved in high-fidelity simulations.

Abstract

With the trend of increasing wind turbine rotor diameters, the mitigation of blade fatigue loadings is of special interest to extend the turbine lifetime. Fatigue load reductions can be partly accomplished using Individual Pitch Control (IPC) facilitated by the so-called Multi-Blade Coordinate (MBC) transformation. This operation transforms and decouples the blade load signals in a yaw- and tilt-axis. However, in practical scenarios, the resulting transformed system still shows coupling between the axes, posing a need for more advanced Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) control architectures. This paper presents a novel analysis and design framework for decoupling of the non-rotating axes by the inclusion of an azimuth offset in the reverse MBC transformation, enabling the application of simple Single-Input Single-Output (SISO) controllers. A thorough analysis is given by including the azimuth offset in a frequency-domain representation. The result is evaluated on simplified blade models, as well as linearizations obtained from the NREL~5\nobreakdash-MW reference wind turbine. A sensitivity and decoupling assessment justify the application of decentralized SISO control loops for IPC. Furthermore, closed-loop high-fidelity simulations show beneficial effects on pitch actuation and blade fatigue load reductions.