A Computationally Tractable Path-Planning Method for Airborne Wind Energy Systems

TL;DR

This paper introduces a computationally efficient method for designing power-maximising flight paths in airborne wind energy systems, using nonlinear programming to optimize Lissajous curves under curvature constraints.

Contribution

It presents a novel, tractable path-planning framework that optimizes geometric flight paths for AWES, outperforming traditional optimal control and learning-based methods.

Findings

The method effectively maximizes average power output during reel-out.

It reduces computational complexity compared to existing approaches.

The approach incorporates curvature constraints for realistic flight paths.

Abstract

Airborne Wind Energy Systems (AWES) have emerged as a promising renewable energy technology that exploits stronger, more consistent high-altitude winds via tethered airborne devices. Among the various concepts, crosswind systems, where efficient flight control is essential to maximise energy output, offer significant potential. This paper addresses the problem of reference selection for crosswind flight control, focusing on the design of power-maximising geometric flight paths for the reel-out phase of Groundgen systems. To overcome the computational challenges associated with optimal control approaches, a computationally tractable framework is proposed in which a path-planning problem is formulated as a nonlinear program. The method optimises the parameters of a Lissajous curve to maximise the average power production over the reel-out phase, while incorporating curvature constraints. The proposed approach provides an efficient alternative to existing optimal control and learning-based methods.