State Estimation for Kite Power Systems with Delayed Sensor Measurements

We present a novel estimation approach for airborne wind energy systems with ground-based control and energy generation. The estimator fuses measurements from an inertial measurement unit attached to a tethered wing and position measurements from a camera as well as line angle sensors in an unscented Kalman filter. We have developed a novel kinematic description for tethered wings to specifically address tether dynamics. The presented approach simultaneously estimates feedback variables for a flight controller as well as model parameters, such as a time-varying delay. We demonstrate the performance of the estimator for experimental flight data and compare it to a state-of-the-art estimator based on inertial measurements

Visual motion tracking and sensor fusion for kite power systems

An estimation approach is presented for kite power systems with groundbased actuation and generation. Line-based estimation of the kite state, including position and heading, limits the achievable cycle efficiency of such airborne wind energy systems due to significant estimation delay and line sag. We propose a filtering scheme to fuse onboard inertial measurements with ground-based line data for ground-based systems in pumping operation. Estimates are computed using an extended Kalman filtering scheme with a sensor-driven kinematic process model which propagates and corrects for inertial sensor biases. We further propose a visual motion tracking approach to extract estimates of the kite position from ground-based video streams. The approach combines accurate object detection with fast motion tracking to ensure long-term object tracking in real time. We present experimental results of the visual motion tracking and inertial sensor fusion on a ground-based kite power system in pumping operation and compare both methods to an existing estimation scheme based on line measurements

Modeling, identification, estimation and adaptation for the control of power-generating kites

Large-scale kites, flying high-force crosswind trajectories, have been proposed for wind power generation. A two phase operational cycle generates net positive power using a ground-based motor/generator. In the traction phase the kite flies a high-force trajectory while reeling out the generator-connected tethers. A low-force retraction phase reels in the tethers and returns the kite to the start of the cycle. Highly variable conditions and significant uncertainty in the dynamics pose challenges to autonomous, well-controlled flight. The control task is divided into trajectory generation and tracking components and the most uncertain parameters in the model are identified online. The control structure uses these parameters in a robust framework resulting in an experimentally verified adaptive control scheme

Visual Motion Tracking for Estimation of Kite Dynamics

No abstract availalble

Visual Motion Tracking for Estimation of Kite Dynamics

No abstract availalble

ExpLab - a tool set for computational experiments

SIGLEAvailable from TIB Hannover: RR 1912(2002-1-004) / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekDEGerman

Using (sub)graphs of small width for solving the Steiner problem

SIGLEAvailable from TIB Hannover: RR 1912(2002-1-001) / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekDEGerman