Felix Weyel

Monday, September 08, 2025, 9:00

Room 02-012, Georges-Köhler Allee 102, Freiburg 79110, Germany

Abstract: Compared to conventional wind turbines, airborne wind energy systems (AWES) offer the possibility to harness the higher wind speeds found at several hundred to over a thousand meters altitude, while requiring less material and ground area. Over the past years, various concepts have been proposed and some tested in pilot projects. This thesis focuses on the RAWES concept, which can be described as an airborne rotor exerting a pulling force on a tether, which is converted to electrical energy on the ground. Accurate control of such system is essential, for example to prevent collisions with other units, and represents a critical safety aspect. The considered RAWES is controlled by adjusting the pitch angle of its rotor blades. The pitch is set by actuating flaps on the trailing edge of the blades, using servo motors. In this thesis, a model that describes the blade pitch angle based on the flap deflec- tion is identified from measurement data. Based on this model, a controller that computes the required flap deflection for a given blade pitch is designed. Simulation results show that the controller performs well for an isolated rotor blade without external wind, and that it can compensate for small disturbances or model errors. However, for the operation on a RAWES flying in crosswinds, the controller is only partially suitable, as its calculations do not adapt to the changing wind conditions caused by the rotor’s tilt and the rotational movement. The controller developed in this thesis can therefore serve as a foundation for designing a control system that also accounts for varying conditions.