Fault Detection Algorithm for Wind Turbines’ Pitch Actuator Systems

Abstract

A fault detection innovation to wind turbines’ pitch actuators is an important subject to guarantee the efficiency wind energy conversion and long lifetime operation of these rotatory machines. Therefore, a recent and effective fault detection algorithm is conceived to detect faults on wind turbine pitch actuators. This approach is based on the interval observer framework theory that has proved to be an efficient tool to measure dynamic uncertainties in dynamical systems. It is evident that almost any fault in any actuator may affect its historical-time behavior. Hence, and properly conceptualized, a fault detection system can be successfully designed based on interval observer dynamics. This is precisely our main contribution. Additionally, we realize a numerical analysis to evaluate the performance of our approach by using a dynamic model of a pitch actuator device with faults. The numerical experiments support our main contribution.

A Proportional Digital Controller to Monitor Load Variation in Wind Turbine Systems

“…The main objective of this section is to experimentally validate our experimental platform in comparison to a real wind turbine related to its pitch system. It is well known that a wind turbine pitch system can be modeled by a linear and time-invariant secondorder system [8][9][10]. Therefore, the response time of a hydraulic pitch system for a wind turbine is set as τ s = ζw n 6.666 s [8][9][10].…”

“…It is well known that a wind turbine pitch system can be modeled by a linear and time-invariant secondorder system [8][9][10]. Therefore, the response time of a hydraulic pitch system for a wind turbine is set as τ s = ζw n 6.666 s [8][9][10]. Thus, the settling time can be inferred as five times this value, which is approximately 33.33 s. Let us estimate our settling time in our emulator system by using the experimental data previously described and displayed in Figure 9.…”

“…Then the two voltage reading channels CH0 and CH1 are assigned, allowing the microcontroller (7) to be defined. Note that its analog version corresponds to (8). Finally, a time delay is considered to avoid data read overlapping.…”

“…However, we seek to employ more standard techniques. Moreover, in [8], a pitch actuator monitoring system is proposed by using interval observers. In [9], a pitch actuator fault detection method is presented by using a digital disturbance observer.…”

A Remote Sensing Scheme for Fault Diagnosis to Wind Turbines: An Academic Experimental Set-Up

“…Lately, there have been reported many approaches on fault detection to wind turbine structures [1][2][3]. Some of them are based on intelligent computation [4,5], others on observers and control techniques [6,7], and others on image processing [8]; and so on [9]. In contrast, the design of fault diagnosis methods to these systems by using lowcost electronic components is not completely developed but some few reported (see a patent here).…”