We compare the available wind resources for conventional wind turbines and for airborne wind energy systems. Accessing higher altitudes and dynamically adjusting the harvesting operation to the wind resource substantially increases the potential energy yield. The study is based on the ERA5 reanalysis data which covers a period of 7 years with hourly estimates at a surface resolution of 31 x 31 km and a vertical resolution of 137 barometric altitude levels. We present detailed wind statistics for a location in the English Channel and then expand the analysis to a surface grid of Western and Central Europe with a resolution of 110 x 110 km. Over the land mass and coastal areas of Europe we find that compared to a fixed harvesting altitude at the approximate hub height of wind turbines, the energy yield which is available for 95% of the time increases by a factor of two.
Real-time altitude control of airborne wind energy (AWE) systems can improve performance by allowing turbines to track favorable wind speeds across a range of operating altitudes. The current work explores the performance implications of deploying an AWE system with sensor configurations that provide different amounts of data to characterize wind speed profiles. We examine various control objectives that balance trade-offs between exploration and exploitation, and use a persistence model to generate a probabilistic wind speed forecast to inform control decisions. We assess system performance by comparing power production against baselines such as omniscient control and stationary flight. We show that with few sensors, control strategies that reward exploration are favored. We also show that with comprehensive sensing, the implications of choosing a sub-optimal control strategy decrease. This work informs and motivates the need for future research exploring online learning algorithms to characterize vertical wind speed profiles.
In this paper we present AWEsome (Airborne Wind Energy Standardized Open-source Model Environment), a test platform for airborne wind energy systems that consists of low-cost hardware and is entirely based on open-source software. It can hence be used without the need of large financial investments, in particular by research groups and startups to acquire first experiences in their flight operations, to test novel control strategies or technical designs, or for usage in public relations. Our system consists of a modified off-the-shelf model aircraft that is controlled by the pixhawk autopilot hardware and the ardupilot software for fixed wing aircraft. The aircraft is attached to the ground by a tether. We have implemented new flight modes for the autonomous tethered flight of the aircraft along periodic patterns. We present the principal functionality of our algorithms. We report on first successful tests of these modes in real flights.
We present a data-driven optimization framework that aims to address online adaptation of the flight path shape for an airborne wind energy system (AWE) that follows a repetitive path to generate power. Specifically, Bayesian optimization, which is a data-driven algorithm for finding the optimum of an unknown objective function, is utilized to solve the waypoint adaptation. To form a computationally efficient optimization framework, we describe each figure-$8$ flight via a compact set of parameters, termed as basis parameters. We model the underlying objective function by a Gaussian Process (GP). Bayesian optimization utilizes the predictive uncertainty information from the GP to determine the best subsequent basis parameters. Once a path is generated using Bayesian optimization, a path following mechanism is used to track the generated figure-$8$ flight. The proposed framework is validated on a simplified $2$-dimensional model that mimics the key behaviors of a $3$-dimensional AWE system. We demonstrate the capability of the proposed framework in a simulation environment for a simplified $2$-dimensional AWE system model.
Velocity measurements of wind blowing near the North Sea border of Northern Germany and velocity measurements under local isotropic conditions of a turbulent wake behind a cylinder are compared. It is shown that wind gusts - measured by means of velocity increments - do show similar statistics to the laboratory data, if they are conditioned on an averaged wind speed value. Clear differences between the laboratory data and the atmospheric wind velocity measurement are found for the waiting time statistics between successive gusts above a certain threshold of interest.
A two-year measurement campaign of the ZephIR 300 vertical profiling continuous-wave (CW) focusing wind lidar has been carried out by the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) at the Cabauw site. We focus on the (height-dependent) data availability of the wind lidar under various meteorological conditions and the data quality through a comparison with in situ wind measurements at several levels in the 213-m tall meteorological mast. We find an overall availability of quality controlled wind lidar data of 97 % to 98 %, where the missing part is mainly due to precipitation events exceeding 1 mm/h or fog or low clouds below 100 m. The mean bias in the horizontal wind speed is within 0.1 m/s with a high correlation between the mast and wind lidar measurements, although under some specific conditions (very high wind speed, fog or low clouds) larger deviations are observed. The mean bias in the wind direction is within 2 degrees, which is on the same order as the combined uncertainty in the alignment of the wind lidars and the mast wind vanes. The well-known 180 degree error in the wind direction output for this type of instrument occurs about 9 % of the time. A correction scheme based on data of an auxiliary wind vane at a height of 10 m is applied, leading to a reduction of the 180 degree error below 2 %. This scheme can be applied in real-time applications in case a nearby, freely exposed, mast with wind direction measurements at a single height is available.