Predictive control design on an embedded robust output-feedback compensator for wind turbine blade-pitch preview control

The use of upstream wind measurements has motivated the development of blade-pitch preview controllers to improve rotor speed tracking and structural load reduction beyond that achievable via conventional feedback design. Such preview controllers, typically based upon model predictive control (MPC) for its constraint handling properties, alter the closed-loop dynamics of the existing blade-pitch feedback control system.

This can result in the robustness properties of the original closed-loop system being no longer preserved. As a consequence, the aim of this work is to formulate a MPC layer on top of a given output-feedback controller, with a view to retaining the closed-loop robustness and frequency-domain performance of the latter.

The separate nature of the proposed controller structure enables clear and transparent qualifications of the benefits gained by using preview and predictive control. This is illustrated by results obtained from closed-loop simulations upon a high-fidelity turbine, showing the performance comparison between a nominal feedback compensator and the proposed MPC-based preview controller.