Application of a Data-Driven Fuzzy Control Design to a Wind Turbine Benchmark Model

In general, the modelling of wind turbines is a challenging task, since they are complex dynamic systems, whose aerodynamics are nonlinear and unsteady. Accurate models should contain many degrees of freedom, and their control algorithm design must account for these complexities. However, these algorithms must capture the most important turbine dynamics without being too complex and unwieldy, mainly when they have to be implemented in real-time applications. The first contribution of this work consists of providing an application example of the design and testing through simulations, of a data-driven fuzzy wind turbine control. In particular, the strategy is based on fuzzy modelling and identification approaches to model-based control design. Fuzzy modelling and identification can represent an alternative for developing experimental models of complex systems, directly derived directly from measured input-output data without detailed system assumptions. Regarding the controller design, this paper suggests again a fuzzy control approach for the adjustment of both the wind turbine blade pitch angle and the generator torque. The effectiveness of the proposed strategies is assessed on the data sequences acquired from the considered wind turbine benchmark. Several experiments provide the evidence of the advantages of the proposed regulator with respect to different control methods.