Search for: All records

In this work, we propose a control framework for farms consisting of ocean current turbines (OCT). The ocean current turbine systems used in this farm are tethered to the ground of the ocean, and their depth can be adjusted online based on the maximum ocean current power available. To maximize the average power generated by the farm, the ocean current turbine wake interactions must be taken into account, and also each turbine in the farm should achieve these changes in the position reference with minimum control energy. Considering additional limitations such as keeping the tethering cables away from each other and avoiding collisions between the turbines, an advanced optimization framework is developed to achieve the maximum power generation in a specified region. Tracking of the reference trajectories by the ocean current turbine systems is achieved by model predictive control (MPC). A case study is presented to highlight the significant estimated improvement in the average energy generated by the farm using the proposed framework and control methodology. 

A comprehensive numerical model was developed to address the performance of a permanent magnet direct current (PMDC) motor which is employed as a small-scale three-bladed horizontal axis ocean current turbine. This numerical model development is presented along with a comparison to experimental data to quantify the motor performance. The proposed experimental design is discussed in detail. Due to the nature of the ocean current turbine, it is required to run it first by applying input power, subsequently to be governed by hydrokinetic energy. Thus, a detailed performance of the PMDC motor is essential when it runs as a motor and generator. Based on our preliminary work, the angular speed of the small-scale turbine is less than 500 rpm. Thus, a combination of the PMDC motor and a planetary gearhead is used to fulfill this low-speed requirement. The gearhead is driven in reverse when operating as a generator which leads to poor efficiency. This efficiency is experimentally derived to be 47.8% at maximum speed of 479.4 rpm at 12V.