Setup and Hardware-in-the-Loop Operation of an Open Control Research Wind Turbine on a System Test Bench

This paper presents the setup of an open control Research Wind Turbine and its validation in Hardware-in-the-Loop operation on a System Test Bench. The Wind Turbine is a modified NEG Micon NM80/2750 with a rated power of 2.75 MW and all components updated to the state of the art. Its original automation is replaced by an open control based on a Programmable Logic Control by Siemens. Both the control and the operation management are implemented in MATLAB Simulink and integrated by automatic code generation which allows the efficient validation of innovative control methods in experiment after model based design in simulation. Also, the simulation models of the original Wind Turbine and the Turbine on the Test Bench are introduced. The Wind Turbine is validated on a System Test Bench in Hardware-in-the-Loop operation offering a realistic test earlier in the development process. A System Test Bench enables the efficient and reproducible investigation of the behavior of an entire Wind Turbine drive train only without the big components rotor and tower. Though, due to the missing rotor inertia, the drive train behavior differs strongly from the original one on the field. The presented Hardware-in-the-Loop system consists of the models of the wind as well as the rotor and the Inertia Emulation, which reproduces the real dynamic. It is also implemented in Simulink and realized on a dSPACE computer. The Research Wind Turbine is validated with turbulent wind in the whole operating range matching the expected behavior in simulation well. This is also the first Hardware-in-the-Loop operation of a Wind Turbine on a System Test Bench at this power level.