Linear Take-Off and Landing of a Rigid Aircraft for Airborne Wind Energy Extraction

Fagiano, Lorenzo; Van, Eric Nguyen; Schnez, Stephan

doi:10.1007/978-981-10-1947-0_20

Cited by 4 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…Regarding the altitude controller, a constant, relatively large reference pitch angle θ ref,to (e.g. 40 • ) is used: (19) which gives place to a large vertical speed (see equation (7)). Finally, the roll reference is computed in order to keep a straight trajectory in the inertial (X, Y ) plane.…”

Section: High-level Controllersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Within the scientific literature, the take-off of pumping AWE generators has been addressed only to a limited extent, mainly considering a rotational take-off approach [17,18]. In recent contributions [19,20] we compared different take-off approaches on the basis of qualitative and quantitative criteria, and concluded that a linear approach is among the most promising solutions, with a good tradeoff between ground-based equipments, land occupation and additional onboard mass. In such an approach, the aircraft is accelerated to take-off speed over a short distance by a motor installed on the ground and then it climbs to a safe altitude using relatively small onboard propellers.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Autonomous Takeoff and Flight of a Tethered Aircraft for Airborne Wind Energy

Fagiano

Nguyen-Van

Rager

et al. 2018

IEEE Trans. Contr. Syst. Technol.

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A control design approach to achieve fully autonomous take-off and flight maneuvers with a tethered aircraft is presented and demonstrated in real-world flight tests with a small-scale prototype. A ground station equipped with a controlled winch and a linear motion system accelerates the aircraft to take-off speed and controls the tether reeling in order to limit the pulling force. This setup corresponds to airborne wind energy systems with ground-based energy generation and rigid aircrafts. A simple model of the aircraft's dynamics is introduced and its parameters are identified from experimental data. A model-based, hierarchical feedback controller is then designed, whose aim is to manipulate the elevator, aileron and propeller inputs in order to stabilize the aircraft during the take-off and to achieve figure-of-eight flight patterns parallel to the ground. The controller operates in a fully decoupled mode with respect to the ground station. Parameter tuning and stability/robustness aspect are discussed, too. The experimental results indicate that the controller is able to achieve satisfactory performance and robustness, notwithstanding its simplicity, and confirm that the considered take-off approach is technically viable and solves the issue of launching this kind of airborne wind energy systems in a compact space and at low additional cost.

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Section: High-level Controllersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Autonomous Takeoff and Flight of a Tethered Aircraft for Airborne Wind Energy

Fagiano

Nguyen-Van

Rager

et al. 2018

IEEE Trans. Contr. Syst. Technol.

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“…Airborne wind energy (AWE) is a class of innovative renewable energy technologies that employ by tethered flying devices for generating electricity [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16]. In the following we refer to these devices as aircrafts.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A comparison of the patents and scientific papers produced in the AWE domain is given in [9]. Due to space limitations, we restrict our discussion of AWE systems herein to the paradigm of vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) [4,6,[13][14][15][16].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In practice, several companies like Makani, E-kite, Twing Tec, kitemill [7,8] and Skypull SA [6] go for the rigid wing design to simplify the process of vertical take-off and landing (VTOL). Several papers by Fagiano and his associates [6,[13][14][15][16] address important issues related to the VTOL paradigm. Of paramount importance is the issue of transitions experienced by the AWE vehicle from a hovering mode (where it acts as a multi-copter) to a dynamic-flight mode (where it acts like an airplane), and vice versa.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Simulation of the Transition Phase for an Optimally-Controlled Tethered VTOL Rigid Aircraft for AirborneWind Energy Generation

Rushdi

Hussein²,

Dief

et al. 2020

AIAA Scitech 2020 Forum

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Three-Dimensional Unsteady Aerodynamic Analysis of a Rigid-Framed Delta Kite Applied to Airborne Wind Energy

et al. 2021

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The validity of using a low-computational-cost model for the aerodynamic characterization of Airborne Wind Energy Systems was studied by benchmarking a three-dimensional Unsteady Panel Method (UnPaM) with experimental data from a flight test campaign of a two-line Rigid-Framed Delta kite. The latter, and a subsequent analysis of the experimental data, provided the evolution of the tether tensions, the full kinematic state of the kite (aerodynamic velocity and angular velocity vectors, among others), and its aerodynamic coefficients. The history of the kinematic state was used as input for UnPaM that provided a set of theoretical aerodynamic coefficients. Disparate conclusions were found when comparing the experimental and theoretical aerodynamic coefficients. For a wide range of angles of attack and sideslip angles, the agreement in the lift and lateral force coefficients was good and moderate, respectively, considering UnPaM is a potential flow tool. As expected, UnPaM predicts a much lower drag because it ignores viscous effects. The comparison of the aerodynamic torque coefficients is more delicate due to uncertainties on the experimental data. Besides fully non-stationary simulations, the lift coefficient was also studied with UnPaM by assuming quasi-steady and steady conditions. It was found that for a typical figure-of-eight trajectory there are no significant differences between unsteady and quasi-steady approaches allowing for fast simulations.

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Linear Take-Off and Landing of a Rigid Aircraft for Airborne Wind Energy Extraction

Cited by 4 publications

References 11 publications

Autonomous Takeoff and Flight of a Tethered Aircraft for Airborne Wind Energy

Autonomous Takeoff and Flight of a Tethered Aircraft for Airborne Wind Energy

Simulation of the Transition Phase for an Optimally-Controlled Tethered VTOL Rigid Aircraft for AirborneWind Energy Generation

Three-Dimensional Unsteady Aerodynamic Analysis of a Rigid-Framed Delta Kite Applied to Airborne Wind Energy

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