OPTIMUM CONTROL STRATEGIES FOR GRID-CONNECTED WIND ENERGY

CONVERSION SYSTEM WITHOUT MECHANICAL SENSORS

Kelvin Tan*and Syed Islam**

Curtin University of Technology, WA, Australia
*Australian Cooperative Research Centre for Renewable Energy Ltd
**Centre of Renewable Energy and Sustainable Technologies Australia (CRESTA)

Abstract
The amount of energy captured from a wind energy conversion system (WECS) depends not only on the
prevailing wind at the site, but also on the control strategy used for the WECS. In order to determine the gain
in energy derived from one concept to another, several autonomous WECS models have been developed. A
software program written in Matlab Simulink, facilitates the performance evaluations and comparisons of the
different control strategies used, as well as the energy injected to the grid in the case of grid-connected
systems. This paper also proposes prototype versions of some new control strategies for a 20kW permanent
magnet synchronous generator (PMSG). The digital simulation of the system demonstrates the advantages of
these mechanical sensorless control strategies for maximum power estimation.

1 INTRODUCTION
Optimum wind energy extraction is achieved by
running the wind turbine generator (WTG) in
variable-speed variable-frequency mode. The rotor
speed is allowed to vary in sympathy with the wind
speed, by maintaining the tip speed ratio to the value
that maximizes aerodynamic efficiency. In order to
achieve this ratio, the permanent magnet
synchronous generator load line should be matched
very closely to the maximum power line of the wind
turbine generator. This wills the optimal the
performance of the system, as well as maximum
utilization of the wind-driven PMSG. During the last
few decades, many different maximum power point
tracking (MPPT) control strategies have been
developed [1, 2], which as such, enabled the
selection of the optimal MPPT for each WECS
project. A review of recent publications show that
there is very little agreement on the gain in the
projected energy[3]. It must be mentioned here that
thus far, all the techniques of maximum energy
capture in the WECS have been based on the signals
available from an anemometer. Results of some of
these studies are as given below:- According to [4],
under optimal variable-speed condition, the
operation provided 4% more energy than fixed
speed, whereas authors in [5] is more optimistic,
suggesting that the variable-speed system provided
16% more energy than fixed speed option. In
contrast, authors in [6] claim that this gain is up to
20%. Nevertheless, to date, no substantial evidence
is available as to which system is likely to provide
cheaper energy over its lifetime. The discrepancies
in energy capture indicate that there are considerable
uncertainties in this area. This is not surprising in
view of the many possible initial assumptions and
differences in the various methodologies. In order to
find out the gain in energy capture of one over
another, proper definitions of all concepts under
comparison must be made. Next, all concepts under
consideration must have the same parameters and
components. All concepts under consideration must
be exposed to exactly the same wind conditions. In
this paper, we propose a new technique to capture
maximum energy without the wind speed sensor.

2 WECS MODELING

Figure 1. Wind Energy Conversion System

The basic components of a WECS as in Fig. 1 are :
Wind Turbine
Permanent magnet synchronous generator
(PMSG)
Rectifier
Current control inverter
The power incident upon a wind turbine at a given
instant can be given as[7]:
Watts
3
w
AU
p
C
2
1
m
P = (1)
This relationship between the C
P
and is usually
provided by the turbine manufacturer in the form of
a set of non-dimensional curves as shown in Fig 2.
The tip speed ratio is given as (2). The relationship
between the mechanical angular velocity of the rotor
(
m
), and the angular frequency of the PMSG stator
voltage (
r
) is expressed in (3).
w
U
m
r
= (2)
m

2
p
r
= (3)

Figure 2. C
p
- curve for a fixed pitch turbine


Figure 3. Power flow at different Cp
max

Cp
max
is the maximum torque coefficient developed
by the wind turbine at a tip-speed ratio
max
. From
the power curve of the wind turbine, it is possible to
operate the wind turbine at two speeds for the same
power output. Fig 3 shows the power characteristic
of Cp
max
at different . In practice the, the operating
range at region 1 is unstable as the rotor speed of the
WTG belongs to the stall region. Any decrease in
the tip speed region will cause a further decrease
until the turbine stops. Therefore, the controller has
to be designed to keep the operating point inside the
desired region.
The outer-rotor 20kW CRESTA permanent magnet
synchronous generator as described in [8] is used in
the WECS mathematical model. The PMSG
dynamic equations are expressed in the d-q
reference frame and can be given as (4) and (5)
[9,10] The expression for the electromagnetic torque
in the rotor is written as in (6).
m

d
i
d
L
r

q
)i
q
pL (R
q
v + + = (4)
q
i
q
L
r

d
)i
d
pL (R
d
v + + = (5)
( ) [ ]
q
i
m

d
i
q
i
q
L
d
L
2
P
2
3
e
T =

(6)
In a real machine, the wind speed is constantly
varying which causes the PMSG to produce
variable-voltage and variable-frequency output. A 3-
phase diode rectifier is used to convert the output to
DC. The DC power available at the rectifier output
is converted to AC power by using a PWM current
controlled inverter (CCI)[11]. It is important to
understand the voltage, current and power
characteristics generated by the system at various
wind speeds. The loading characteristic of the
permanent magnet synchronous generator WECS
can be easily simulated by connecting an adjustable
load resistor to the PMSG and rectifier terminal.
Results of the calculations are for wind speeds
ranging from 4 to 12m/sec. Fig. 4 shows the
corresponding output power of the PMSG at various
wind speeds, where the generator maximum power
curves show the different operating dc voltages over
a range of wind speeds. In order to extract the peak
power from the WTG at a given wind speed, the
WECS has to operate at the target on the maximum
power curve. The operating dc voltage has to match
closely to the maximum power curve as shown in
Fig. 4 (maximum power vs. dc voltage).

Figure 4. Predicted characteristics
(dc power-dc voltage) of the WECS

The CCI inverter is capable of operating at wide
range of DC voltages. In order to enable the inverter
to track the maximum power output from the WTG,
the output of the wind turbine generator must be
controlled by adjusting the modulation index M of
the reference sinusoidal signal of the PWM inverter.
As a result, the amplitude of the output ac current
from the CCI inverter controls the loading at the
PMSG and rectifier terminal voltage. The MPPT
controller for CCI is designed to determine the
operating dc voltage of the inverter at various
speeds. The CCIs outer control loop will determine
the reference signal and increasing or decreasing the
amplitude of the output ac current from the CCI
inverter till correct dc voltage at the PMSG and
rectifier terminal is achieved.

3 NEW CONTROL STRATEGY FUZZY
POWER- MAPPING TECHNIQUE
In the proposed sensorless scheme, the inverter input
operating voltage is determined by a power-
mapping technique that is similar to the one-
dimensional lookup table with one input (P
dc
) and
one output (estimated voltage V
dc
). The lookup table
contains the maximum power vs. dc voltage
characteristic as shown in Fig. 4. In this open-loop
control scheme, the controller does not require a
mathematical model of the system/process being
controlled. Fig. 5 shows the preliminary design of
the sensorless WECS controlled system


Figure 5. Block diagram of the Fuzzy power-
mapping sensorless WECS controlled system

The control system consists of two signal-tracking
loops, namely the power-mapping" loop and
alternator frequency derivative loop. The tracking
signals required for both loops are the output power
from the WECS that is transferred to the dc link and
the PMSG stator frequency. The current control
inverter has the flexibility to operate over a wide
range of dc input voltages. At a given wind speed,
the output dc link power is used to estimate the
optimal dc operating voltage from the "power-
mapping" maximum power vs. dc voltage curve as
shown in Fig. 4. Due to the sensitivity of P
dc
to the
changes in V
dc
for the PMSG, P
dc
and V
dc
will
continue to increase or decrease till their intersection
at the maximum power for the given wind speed.
The stator frequency will also be changing
(increasing or decreasing) while the operating DC
voltage changes. In the alternator frequency
derivative loop, the correction from derivative
control loop depends on the rate of change of the
stator frequency and it serves as a means of
obtaining higher sensitivity in the overall control.
Responding to the rate of change of the stator
frequency, the derivative control can produce a
significant correction to the operating dc voltage.
The gain value from the frequency derivative loop
will become zero if the operating dc voltage is an
optimal one that leads to the maximum power point.
Increasing the gain (K) in the derivative loop tends
to increase the time response of the system but may
not be capable of also producing adequate stability.
The gain (K) in the derivative loop has to be
adjusted carefully in order to arrive at acceptable
performance. The criteria of tuning the gain value
are based on the inertial of the overall PMSG wind
turbine, sampling rate of the controller, and response
time of the CCI. The conventional fixed gain or PD
controllers adjust the system control parameters on
the basis of an accurate mathematical model of the
process dynamics. The feedback gains for the
controller are tuned for a specified linearized model
and are fixed throughout the whole range of wind
speeds. Though this will allow the system to operate
at a stable operating point, but it may also provide
insufficient damping for any different operating
point caused by disturbance and large wind
deviations. In Fig. 6, with respect to the use of the
fuzzy controller as proposed in this work, the value
of controller gain is subject to the PMSG wind
turbine rotation speed and rate of change of the
rotational speed. The function of this controller is
the adjustment of the gain to increase the overall
response of the system controller, and maximize the
energy capture over a wide range of wind speeds.
Using the results determined by the power-
mapping" loop and alternator frequency derivative
loop, the controller allows the dc bus voltage to vary
to the maximum power operating point.

Figure 6. Fuzzy power- mapping technique


Figure 7. Membership functions for input F


Figure 8. Membership functions for input F


Figure 9. Membership functions for output U

Table 1: Decision table of 49 rules
F
NB NM NS SM PS PM PB
PB PB PB PB PB PM PM PS
PM PB PM PM PM PM PM PS
PS PM PS PS PS PS PS PS
ZR PS ZR ZR ZR ZR ZR PS
NS NS NS NS NS NS NS NM
NM NS NM NM NM NM NM NB




F
NB ZR NS NM NB NB NB NB
The main FLC processes are fuzzification, rules
definition, inference mechanism and defuzzification.
Fuzzification is the process of transferring the crisp
input variables to the corresponding fuzzy variables.
In this paper, the PMSG stator frequency (F) and the
frequency deviation (F) are used as two inputs to
the FLC. The fuzzy sets for input F are defined
according to the membership functions as shown in
Fig. 7, whereas the fuzzy sets for input F are
defined according to the membership functions as
shown in Fig. 8. The ranges of the membership
functions as shown in Fig. 7 are chosen according to
what is expected for the maximum and minimum
rotational speed frequency that depends on the wind
speed. The ranges of the membership functions as
shown in Fig. 8 are chosen according to what is
expected for the maximum and minimum deviation
response to the sudden change of wind speed. In this
design, each rule has been given equal importance
and provided with a weight of 1. The membership
function labeled (ZR) for input F has been chosen
to be narrower than other membership functions.
This will cause the oscillations in speed deviation to
damp faster when the speed deviation reduces to
small value around zero. For this FLC, with two
input variables each consisting of seven functions, a
(77) decision table is constructed as shown in
Table 1. Every entity in the table represents a rule.
The antecedent of each rule conjuncts F and F
fuzzy set values. An example of the ith rule is: If F is
NB and F is PM then U is PM. In this paper,
defuzzification is done using the Centroid method,
where output u is defuzzified according to the
membership functions as shown in Fig. 9. This
method returns the crisp output value corresponding
to the center of area under the overall fuzzy output.

4 ADAPTING PREVIOUS CONTROL
STRATEGIES FOR THE WECS
4.1 Wind prediction control scheme
In the process of controlling the PMSG load line so
that it matches very closely to the maximum power
line of the wind turbine generator, it is essential to
know the wind speed. For the sensorless control
strategy, no anemometer is used to provide the
controller with the wind speed conditions; therefore
it is necessary to forecast the wind speed. To predict
the wind speed based on the historical data, various
techniques are available [12,13]. Autoregressive
statistical models are commonly used for the wind
speed prediction. In this prediction method, the
control strategy requires details of the WECS
mathematical model in the control system. Block
diagram of the wind prediction for the sensorless
WECS controlled system is shown in Fig. 10. The
prediction control system takes into consideration
the previous set of timeframe energy captured from
the WECS so as to predict the wind speed value for
the next timeframe set. Since the wind prediction
system requires historical data, the timeframe set of
30sec wind prediction [13] was investigated. The
accuracy of the wind speed prediction depends on
the coefficient index, linear prediction coefficient,
and sampling time of the past value of the wind
speed inferred from the turbine output. A higher
degree of accuracy of the wind speed prediction may
be achieved by using higher order statistical models,
and the WECS mathematical model in the control
system. This however demands complex
computation, and tends to increase the cost of the
controller. An acceptable level of performance can
be achieved by using set ranges of wind speed. By
adopting this methodology, calculation of the wind
speed can be carried out independently and the
results can be used to correct the inverter input in a
small number of ranges. In this paper, the operating
voltage of the CCI is targeted at five ranges of
optimum wind speed depending on the 30sec wind
speed prediction.

Figure 10. Block diagram of the wind prediction
sensorless WECS controlled system

4.2 Fixed voltage scheme
For the fixed voltage situation, the voltage of the
CCI is fixed at a targeted optimum wind speed. This
value would typically be optimized knowing the
Weibull distribution for wind speed at the site. In
this control scheme, no additional software or
hardware is needed for the CCI. The fixed voltage
scheme, however, does not vary the PMSG load line
to match the maximum power line of the wind
turbine generator, and the results in lower
conversion efficiency at wind speed above and
below the optimum chosen operating value.

5 SIMULATION RESULTS
The aim of this study is to evaluate the relative
advantages in terms of energy saving of the various
control strategies. Thus the WECS control strategies
need to be standardized to the same wind conditions.
In reality, the wind speed varies with time, and the
wind turbulence can sometimes be quite
complicated. Thus, it may lead to inaccuracies if the
system is evaluated based on a single random wind
speed vs. time characteristic. To overcome this
problem, 3 different wind speed characteristics are
provided as input to each of the control strategies.
The wind speed time characteristic used in this study
is based on real wind data measured in ACREs
laboratory in Western Australia with a sampling rate
of 1 sample/sec. To minimize extensive comparison
of the figures, only one wind speed output
characteristic will be shown in this paper.
It is assumed that the WECS have identical cut-in
wind speed and cut-out wind speed that limit the
output power during strong winds. The use of cut-
in wind speed and cut-out wind speed limiting
control as a protective measure may, however,
interfere with the control system modelled in this
paper. The WECS mathematical model has been
simulated on a PC using Matlab Simulink software
and its toolbox packages. The wind profile input
data is shown in Fig. 11(i). In the event that the wind
is fluctuating with a non-uniform distribution, the
output power from the inverter will not be smooth.
As the wind speed increases or decreases, the FLC
controller changes the dc voltage over a whole range
of input wind conditions in order to track maximum
power. As shown in Fig. 11(iii), the operating DC
voltage is operating very closely to the required
maximum power operating DC voltage. As a result,
the peak power as shown in Fig. 11(iii) is close to
the actual maximum power for each variation of the
wind speed. From Fig. 12(iii), it can be seen that by
using the wind prediction scheme (5-speed-30sec
sampling), the operating voltage of the DC bus only
operates on the specified five operating wind speeds,
and the rate of change is every 30 sec. During this
600sec simulation period, the DC voltage will
change several times corresponding to the specified
five operating wind speeds. In addition, the rate of
change is only undertaken in every 30 sec of the
sampling period. Fig. 12(ii) compares the stator
frequency of the proposed controller and the
predictive controller. Notice that when the wind
speed picks up or decreases during each 30 sec
timeframe, the PMSG stator frequency for the
predictive controller stays within an operating point,
and does not vary in the process of capturing the
maximum power. This therefore results in the loss of
overall efficiency.
The maximum power coefficient C
P
of this wind
turbine is approximately 0.457. To maximize the
aerodynamic efficiency, the wind turbine must be
operated at maximum C
P
most of the time. The C
P

characteristics can be very easily calculated using
the simulation program. This will show which
control strategy provides the maximum possible C
P
operation which reflects its capability of capturing
maximum power quickly. The power coefficient C
P

for each control strategy is shown Fig. 13. In Fig.

Figure 11. WECS output characteristics for the Fuzzy control scheme

Figure 12. WECS output characteristics for the wind prediction scheme, 5-speed-30sec sampling
13(i), the C
P
for the proposed FLC controller is
shown to be at its maximum most often as the wind
speed varies, and when the overall energy captured is
optimized throughout the range of wind speeds.
There are some low C
P
values due to the sudden
change of the wind speed. In Figs. 13(ii)-(iii), the
length of sampling time and the number of wind
speed operating points have a measurable impact on
the capability of the maximum power point tracking
controller to operate the wind turbine at maximum
C
P
value. As a result, the average maximum C
P

reduces as the length of sampling time increases and
as the number of operating points reduces.

Figure13. C
p
comparison

Figure 14. Tip speed ratio comparison

As mentioned in the earlier section, the controller
should operate inside the desired non-stall region. In
Fig. 14(i), proposed FLC controller shows that it has
faster response to achieve the desired operating
region. In some occasion, there are some operating
point that falls in stall region, this is due to the
sudden increase of the wind speed, but FLC gain
determined by both control loop immediately
changed the operation voltage and pushed the
operating point to the non stall region. In Fig 14(ii),
the wind prediction control scheme has a 30sec
sampling time. During sudden change of wind speed
in each time frame, the controller is not able to
change the operating point till the sampling time is
up. Since wind speed can be quite unpredictable in
very sampling time frame, wrong wind speed
prediction may cause a further decrease until the
turbine is stop. In fixed voltage scheme, it has a
higher operating dc voltage to target at the high wind
speed for higher energy capture. As a result, its tip
speed ratio characteristics most often operate at
higher values.
During the entire simulation, the power that the wind
turbine feeds into the grid is integrated over time.
The value at the end of the simulation is the energy
that the wind turbine has fed into the grid during the
simulated time period of 10 minutes. And it includes
the consequences of the dynamical responses of the
different control concepts with respect to energy. The
maximum power available from the wind is obtained
by converting the wind speed over the period to
maximum power by means of the maximum power
vs. wind speed characteristic obtained from Fig. 3.
With this WECS, the integrated value of the
maximum power at the end of the simulation is the
maximum energy available from the wind. All
energy captured from the other concepts is
normalized under the same circumstances. Fig. 15
shows the total percentage energy captured from the
wind from each control strategy.

Figure 15. Energy comparison between different
control schemes

As expected, the proposed FLC controller shows an
increase in energy gain over fixed voltage and wind
prediction scheme. Taking into consideration the
aerodynamic, mechanical and electrical losses, the
maximum energy extracted by the FLC is about 72-
78% of the overall energy available from the wind,
and there is an increase of 15-16% over the constant
voltage strategy. The amount of energy extracted
depends on inertia of the blades and the PMSG, as
well as the response time of the CCI inverter.
Reduction in the inertia of the blade and turbine
mass can increase the percentage of maximum
energy extracted by the WECS. This will allow the
wind turbine to react faster to the change in wind
speed. When comparing the references for other
optimal wind power extraction control strategies, the
control strategies in simulation has the closest result
with [5], That is, the variable-speed system provided
16% more energy than the fixed speed option.

6 CONCLUSION
This paper presents the modeling and simulation
results of a prototype variable-speed sensorless
WECS. The sensorless FLC controller concept uses
the frequency and P
dc
control loop to determine the
optimal operating dc voltage of a current controlled
inverter by controlling the modulation index of the
PWM inverter. As a result, the overall energy
captured will be optimized over a wide range of wind
speeds. This study shows that the four variable
voltage strategies have enhanced the maximum
power point tracking capability without significantly
increasing the complexity of the control.
Maintaining a simple and effective controller is an
important factor in the design process so as to ensure
easy implementation as far as industrial application
is concerned. The proposed open loop controller is
easy to implement and requires very little
computation. The controller design does not require
accurate uncertain parameters from the PMSG
WECS. With respect to the knowledge of
characteristic as shown in Fig. 4, easy tuning on the
FLC gains is the only requirement for the controller
design. The next step is to see if the cost of the
proposed control strategy can be recovered in terms
of increased output. Comparisons must be made with
regard to the cost and superiority of the different
controllers with sensors. In addition, the interference
of the wind turbine protection mechanisms (i.e. static
pitch and yaw control), active and reactive power
control on the voltage strategies must be investigated
as well.

7 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The work as described in this paper has been
supported by the Australian Cooperative Research
Centre for Renewable Energy Ltd (ACRE). ACRE's
activities are funded by the Australian
Commonwealth's Cooperative Research Centres
Program. Mr. Kelvin Tan has been supported by
ACREs Postgraduate Research Scholarship. Both
authors wish to extend their thanks to CRESTA and
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at
Curtin University of Technology for supporting the
research work.

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