Print Email Facebook Twitter Flight path planning in a turbulent wind environment Title Flight path planning in a turbulent wind environment Author Fechner, U. (TU Delft Delft University Wind energy research institute) Schmehl, R. (TU Delft Wind Energy) Contributor Schmehl, Roland (editor) Date 2018 Abstract To achieve a high conversion efficiency and at the same time robust control of a pumping kite power system it is crucial to optimize the three-dimensional flight path of the tethered wing. This chapter extends a dynamic system model to account for a realistic, turbulent wind environment and adds a flight path planner using a sequence of attractor points and turn actions. Path coordinates are calculated with explicit geometric formulas. To optimize the power output the path is adapted to the average wind speed and the vertical wind profile, using a small set of parameters. The planner employs a finite state machine with switch conditions that are highly robust towards sensor errors. The results indicate, that the decline of the average power output of pumping kite power systems at high wind speeds can be mitigated. In addition it is shown, that reeling out towards the zenith after flying figure eight flight maneuvers significantly reduces the traction forces during reel-in and thus increases the total efficiency. To reference this document use: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:6794c3c1-723f-41a1-a8f6-d69dede164a6 DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-1947-0_15 Publisher Springer Embargo date 2018-10-02 ISBN 9789811019463 Source Airborne Wind Energy: Advances in Technology Development Series Green Energy and Technology, 18653529 (9789811019463) Bibliographical note Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public. Part of collection Institutional Repository Document type book chapter Rights © 2018 U. Fechner, R. Schmehl Files PDF Fechner_Schmehl2018_Chapter.pdf 2.88 MB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid:6794c3c1-723f-41a1-a8f6-d69dede164a6/datastream/OBJ/view