Predictive control approaches to fault tolerant control of wind turbines

This thesis focuses on active fault tolerant control (AFTC) of wind turbine systems. Faults in wind turbine systems can be in the form of sensor faults, actuator faults, or component faults. These faults can occur in different locations, such as the wind speed sensor, the generator system, drive train system or pitch system. In this thesis, some AFTC schemes are proposed for wind turbine faults in the above locations. Model predictive control (MPC) is used in these schemes to design the wind turbine controller such that system constraints and dual control goals of the wind turbine are considered. In order to deal with the nonlinearity in the turbine model, MPC is combined with Takagi-Sugeno (T-S) fuzzy modelling. Different fault diagnosis methods are also proposed in different AFTC schemes to isolate or estimate wind turbine faults.The main contributions of the thesis are summarized as follows:A new effective wind speed (EWS) estimation method via least-squares support vector machines (LSSVM) is proposed. Measurements from the wind turbine rotor speed sensor and the generator speed sensor are utilized by LSSVM to estimate the EWS. Following the EWS estimation, a wind speed sensor fault isolation scheme via LSSVM is proposed.A robust predictive controller is designed to consider the EWS estimation error. This predictive controller serves as the baseline controller for the wind turbine system operating in the region below rated wind speed.T-S fuzzy MPC combining MPC and T-S fuzzy modelling is proposed to design the wind turbine controller. MPC can deal with wind turbine system constraints externally. On the other hand, T-S fuzzy modelling can approximate the nonlinear wind turbine system with a linear time varying (LTV) model such that controller design can be based on this LTV model. Therefore, the advantages of MPC and T-S fuzzy modelling are both preserved in the proposed T-S fuzzy MPC.A T-S fuzzy observer, based on online eigenvalue assignment, is proposed as the sensor fault isolation scheme for the wind turbine system. In this approach, the fuzzy observer is proposed to deal with the nonlinearity in the wind turbine system and estimate system states. Furthermore, the residual signal generated from this fuzzy observer is used to isolate the faulty sensor.A sensor fault diagnosis strategy utilizing both analytical and hardware redundancies is proposed for wind turbine systems. This approach is proposed due to the fact that in the real application scenario, both analytical and hardware redundancies of wind turbines are available for designing AFTC systems.An actuator fault estimation method based on moving horizon estimation (MHE) is proposed for wind turbine systems. The estimated fault by MHE is then compensated by a T-S fuzzy predictive controller. The fault estimation unit and the T-S fuzzy predictive controller are combined to form an AFTC scheme for wind turbine actuator faults

Fault tolerant control for nonlinear aircraft based on feedback linearization

The thesis concerns the fault tolerant flight control (FTFC) problem for nonlinear aircraft by making use of analytical redundancy. Considering initially fault-free flight, the feedback linearization theory plays an important role to provide a baseline control approach for de-coupling and stabilizing a non-linear statically unstable aircraft system. Then several reconfigurable control strategies are studied to provide further robust control performance:- A neural network (NN)-based adaption mechanism is used to develop reconfigurable FTFC performance through the combination of a concurrent updated learninglaw. - The combined feedback linearization and NN adaptor FTFC system is further improved through the use of a sliding mode control (SMC) strategy to enhance the convergence of the NN learning adaptor. - An approach to simultaneous estimation of both state and fault signals is incorporated within an active FTFC system.The faults acting independently on the three primary actuators of the nonlinear aircraft are compensated in the control system.The theoretical ideas developed in the thesis have been applied to the nonlinear Machan Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) system. The simulation results obtained from a tracking control system demonstrate the improved fault tolerant performance for all the presented control schemes, validated under various faults and disturbance scenarios.A Boeing 747 nonlinear benchmark model, developed within the framework of the GARTEUR FM-AG 16 project “fault tolerant flight control systems”,is used for the purpose of further simulation study and testing of the FTFC scheme developed by making the combined use of concurrent learning NN and SMC theory. The simulation results under the given fault scenario show a promising reconfiguration performance

Computational intelligence approaches to robotics, automation, and control [Volume guest editors]

No abstract available

Event-based feature extraction using adaptive selection thresholds

Unsupervised feature extraction algorithms form one of the most important building blocks in machine learning systems. These algorithms are often adapted to the event-based domain to perform online learning in neuromorphic hardware. However, not designed for the purpose, such algorithms typically require significant simplification during implementation to meet hardware constraints, creating trade offs with performance. Furthermore, conventional feature extraction algorithms are not designed to generate useful intermediary signals which are valuable only in the context of neuromorphic hardware limitations. In this work a novel event-based feature extraction method is proposed that focuses on these issues. The algorithm operates via simple adaptive selection thresholds which allow a simpler implementation of network homeostasis than previous works by trading off a small amount of information loss in the form of missed events that fall outside the selection thresholds. The behavior of the selection thresholds and the output of the network as a whole are shown to provide uniquely useful signals indicating network weight convergence without the need to access network weights. A novel heuristic method for network size selection is proposed which makes use of noise events and their feature representations. The use of selection thresholds is shown to produce network activation patterns that predict classification accuracy allowing rapid evaluation and optimization of system parameters without the need to run back-end classifiers. The feature extraction method is tested on both the N-MNIST (Neuromorphic-MNIST) benchmarking dataset and a dataset of airplanes passing through the field of view. Multiple configurations with different classifiers are tested with the results quantifying the resultant performance gains at each processing stage

A Distributed System for Robot Manipulator Control, NSF Grant ECS-11879 Fourth Report

This is the fourth annual report representing our last year\u27s work under the current grant. This work was directed to the development of a distributed computer architecture to function as a force and motion server to a robot system. In the course of this work we developed a compliant contact sensor to provide for transitions between position and force control; developed an end-effector capable of securing a stable grasp on an object and a theory of grasping; developed and built a controller which minimizes control delays; explored a parallel kinematics algorithms for the controller; developed a consistent approach to the definition of motion both in joint coordinates and in Cartesian coordinates; developed a symbolic simplification software package to generate the dynamics equations of a manipulator such that the calculations may be split between background and foreground

Statistical Coding and Decoding of Heartbeat Intervals

The heart integrates neuroregulatory messages into specific bands of frequency, such that the overall amplitude spectrum of the cardiac output reflects the variations of the autonomic nervous system. This modulatory mechanism seems to be well adjusted to the unpredictability of the cardiac demand, maintaining a proper cardiac regulation. A longstanding theory holds that biological organisms facing an ever-changing environment are likely to evolve adaptive mechanisms to extract essential features in order to adjust their behavior. The key question, however, has been to understand how the neural circuitry self-organizes these feature detectors to select behaviorally relevant information. Previous studies in computational perception suggest that a neural population enhances information that is important for survival by minimizing the statistical redundancy of the stimuli. Herein we investigate whether the cardiac system makes use of a redundancy reduction strategy to regulate the cardiac rhythm. Based on a network of neural filters optimized to code heartbeat intervals, we learn a population code that maximizes the information across the neural ensemble. The emerging population code displays filter tuning proprieties whose characteristics explain diverse aspects of the autonomic cardiac regulation, such as the compromise between fast and slow cardiac responses. We show that the filters yield responses that are quantitatively similar to observed heart rate responses during direct sympathetic or parasympathetic nerve stimulation. Our findings suggest that the heart decodes autonomic stimuli according to information theory principles analogous to how perceptual cues are encoded by sensory systems

Fault Diagnosis Techniques for Linear Sampled Data Systems and a Class of Nonlinear Systems

This thesis deals with the fault diagnosis design problem both for dynamical continuous time systems whose output signal are affected by fixed point quantization,\ud referred as sampled-data systems, and for two different applications whose dynamics are inherent high nonlinear: a remotely operated underwater vehicle and a scramjet-powered hypersonic vehicle.\ud Robustness is a crucial issue. In sampled-data systems, full decoupling of disturbance terms from faulty signals becomes more difficult after discretization.\ud In nonlinear processes, due to hard nonlinearity or the inefficiency of linearization, the “classical” linear fault detection and isolation and fault tolerant control methods may not be applied.\ud Some observer-based fault detection and fault tolerant control techniques are studied throughout the thesis, and the effectiveness of such methods are validated with simulations. The most challenging trade-off is to increase sensitivity to faults and robustness to other unknown inputs, like disturbances. Broadly speaking, fault detection filters are designed in order to generate analytical diagnosis functions, called residuals, which should be independent with respect to the system operating state and should be decoupled from disturbances. Decisions on the occurrence of a possible fault are therefore taken on the basis such residual signals