AWEsome

A low-cost open-source test platform for airborne wind energy systems

Dr. Christoph Sieg

HU Berlin

Tuesday, May 30, 2017, 14:00 - 16:00

Room 01-012, Georges-Köhler-Allee 102, Freiburg 79110, Germany

Airborne wind energy (AWE) is a very promising approach for sustainable energy production. A respective system converts wind energy into mechanical and ultimately electrical power via an aerodynamically active part that is at most flexibly connected to a ground station via one or several tethers. Fundamental questions concerning the design strategies and realizations are, however, still open.

In this talk we present a test platform that admits to study different approaches and hence to answer these questions keeping low the financial investments and profiting at the same time from the developments within the open-source community. After a short review of the AWE approach, we will describe the hard- and software of our test platform with particular focus on the foundations and implementation of our flight modes for tethered flight of fixed-wing aircraft. Then, we will discuss results from simulations and flight tests and give an outlook to future developments.