Wave energy converters (WECs) inherently require appropriate control system technology to ensure maximum energy absorption from ocean waves, consequently reducing the associated levelised cost of energy and facilitating their successful commercialisation. Regardless of the control strategy, the definition of the control problem itself depends upon the specification of a suitable WEC model. Not only is the structure of the model relevant for the definition of the control problem, but also its associated complexity: given that the control law must be computed in real-time, there is a limit to the computational complexity of the WEC model employed in the control design procedure, while there is also a limit to the (analytical) complexity of mathematical models for which a control solution can be efficiently found. This paper presents a systematic nonlinear model reduction by momentmatching framework for WEC systems, capable of providing control-oriented WEC models tailored for the control application, which inherently preserves steady-

Given the relevance of control-oriented models in optimal control design for wave energy converters (WECs), this paper presents a data-driven approach to nonlinear model reduction by moment-matching for the ISWEC device, a device originally developed at the Politecnico di Torino. The presented model reduction technique is capable of providing simple WEC models, which inherently preserve steady-state response characteristics from the target nonlinear system, by merely using information on the system outputs, defined for a specific class of operating conditions. We demonstrate that the proposed model reduction by moment-matching procedure is well-posed for the ISWEC, and illustrate the efficacy of this reduction technique under a variety of sea conditions.

This paper presents a data-driven model reduction by moment-matching approach to construct control-oriented models for a point absorber device. The methodology chosen and developed generates models which are input-to-state linear, with any nonlinear behaviour confined to the output map. Such a map is the result of a data-driven approximation procedure, where the so-called moment of the point absorber system is estimated via a least-squares procedure. The resulting control-oriented model can inherently preserve steady-state properties of the target WEC system for a user-defined class of input signals of interest, with the computation only dependent upon a suitably defined set of input-output data.

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