DotX windturbine control system

The DotX Wind Turbine Control system consists of a normal production controller and a supervisory controller. In addition, there is an event module to trigger events as defined in the certification procedure. Indeed, the control system is suitable for certification of a wind turbine.

What is in it?

The controller adjusts the pitch angle (speed) setpoints, the generator torque setpoint and the yaw motors, based on the windturbine sensors.

The controller can be build up from modules. Currently, the following modules are available:

• base module (generator speed control and power optimisation)
• active tower fore-aft damping control (using tower top acceleration sensor)
• active side-to-side tower damping control (using tower top acceleration sensor)
• active drive-train damping control (using generator speed)
• individual pitch control (using blade root sensors or equivalents)

Controller code

The controller is programmed in ANSI C. There are Matlab m-files to support the control designer in tuning the controller. The C code can be compiled into a dll that can be linked to aero-elastic code such as Bladed, Flex and Phatas/Focus, or to the windturbine embedded computer. The same dll can also be linked to a Matlab wind turbine model. This can be convenient in the design phase, to try out new concepts.