Wind turbine control system design and simulation

This research presents a new approach to the control of a wind turbine (WT), based upon fuzzy sets and fuzzy logic theory. The dynamic characteristics of the WT are partly determined by the choice of the control system. After comparing several configurations, a new WT system configuration is proposed. The proposed WT is a near constant speed constant frequency system. The torque generated by the turbine blade is regulated by controlling the pitch angle. As part of the proposed configuration, a fuzzy logic controller (FLC) for blade pitch angle regulation is designed. The proposed WT can be operated over a wider range of wind speed, while maintaining the rated output power. A digital simulation package, implemented using MATLAB and SIMULINK, is developed. The simulation results show the advantages of the proposed WT configuration with the fuzzy logic control scheme. The effectiveness of FLC is demonstrated by comparison against a PID controller design. With the FLC design, the turbine's shaft torque load, as well as the fluctuation of the WT's output power, are lower under high wind speed operation. With this configuration and blade regulation, both the efficiency and the fatigue life of the WT system are improved.