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This paper presents a study wherein we experimentally characterize the flight dynamics and control system of a lab-scale ocean kite, then refine, validate, and extrapolate this model for use at full-scale. Ocean kite systems harvest ocean current resources through high-efficiency cross-current flight, enable energy extraction with an order of magnitude less material requirements than stationary systems with same rated power outputs. However, an ocean kite represents a nascent technology that is characterized by relatively complex flight dynamics and requires sophisticated flight control algorithms. To characterize the flight dynamics and control of ocean kite systems rapidly, at a relatively low cost, the authors have developed a lab-scale, closed-loop prototyping environment for characterizing tethered systems, whereby 3D printed systems are tethered and flown in a water channel environment. While this system has been shown to be capable of yielding dynamically similar flight characteristics to some full-scale systems, there are also fundamental limitations to the geometric scales and flow speeds within the water channel environment, making some real-world scenarios impossible to replicate from the standpoint of dynamic similarity. To address these scenarios, we show how the lab-scale framework is used to refine and validate a scalable dynamic model of a tethered system, which can then be extrapolated to full-scale flight. In this work, we present an extensive case study of this model refinement, validation, and extrapolation on an ocean kite system intended for operation in the Gulf Stream or similar current environments.

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