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AEM researchers receive 2016 DSCC Energy Systems Best Paper award

DSCC energy systems

Daniel Ossmann with Professor Christopher Vermillion of UNC Charlotte at the awards ceremony

AEM researchers have been awarded the $500 endowed Energy Systems Best Paper Award at this year's ASME Dynamic Systems and Control Conference (DSCC) that was held October 12-14, 2016 in Minneapolis, MN. The winning paper, authored by Postdoctoral Associate Dr. Daniel Ossmann, former Research Fellow Julian Theis, and Professor Peter Seiler, is entitled "Robust Control Design for Load Reduction on a Liberty Wind Turbine".

The paper demonstrates how modern automatic control algorithms can help significantly reduce structural loads on modern wind turbines, which increases the lifespan of wear parts and reduces maintenance cost for the operator. The proposed algorithm tells each blade of the wind turbine to pitch in or out of the wind, depending on acceleration measurements on the blades. Compared to state of the art control strategies, a higher bandwidth is achieved through modern robust control techniques. Simulation of the algorithm on a high-fidelity numerical model of UMN's 2.5 Mega Watt utility scale research turbine, located in Rosemount, MN, indicates a decrease in loads by up to 30%. Implementation on the actual turbine and field tests are planned for the near future to verify these findings experimentally. The turbine is maintained by the Eolos Wind Consortium under the Saint Anthony Falls Lab. Eolos / SAFL and Mikhail Consulting are providing significant support for the experimental testing of the algorithm presented in this paper. The full paper is available here.

Last Modified: 2019-01-03 at 10:56:14 -- this is in International Standard Date and Time Notation