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ORIGINAL PAPER

Kyoungsoo Ro Han-ho Choi


Application of neural network controller for maximum power extraction
of a grid-connected wind turbine system
Received: 8 March 2004 / Accepted: 18 May 2004 / Published online: 3 July 2004
Springer-Verlag 2004
Abstract This paper presents a neural network (NN)
pitch controller of a grid-connected wind turbine sys-
tem for extracting maximum power from wind and
proves that its performance using the NN controller
would be better than that using a classical PI control-
ler. It discusses the maximum power control algorithm
for the wind turbine and presents, in a graphical form,
the relationship of wind turbine output, rotor speed,
power coecient, and tip-speed ratio with wind speed
when the wind turbine is operated under the maximum
power control algorithm. The paper describes the
modeling and simulation of the horizontal axis wind
turbine system, which includes the drive train model,
induction generator model, and grid-interface model
for dynamics analysis. The control objective is to ex-
tract maximum power from wind and transfer the
power to the grid. This is achieved by controlling the
pitch angle of the wind turbine blades by the NN pitch
controller and ring angles of the inverter switches.
The simulation results performed on MATLAB show
the variations of the generator torque, the generator
rotor speed, the pitch angle, and real/reactive power
injected into the grid, etc. Based on the simulation re-
sults, the eectiveness of the proposed controllers
would be veried.
Keywords Wind turbine system Maximum power
extraction Neural network Pitch angle control
D/A inverter
List of symbols
A Cross-sectional area of wind turbine rotor
C
p
Power coefcient of wind turbine
D
c
Turbine friction coefcient
D
g
Generator friction coefcient
i
ds
, i
qs
d-axis and q-axis components of stator
current
J
c
Moment of inertia of wind turbine
J
g
Moment of inertia of generator
n Gear box turn ratio
P
m
Power captured from wind by wind turbine
R Radius of rotor blades
R
s
Stator resistance
T
c
Mechanical input torque to wind turbine
T
e
Electromagnetic torque applied on generator
shaft
T

0
Transient open-circuit time constant of
induction generator
T
b
Actuators time constant
m Wind speed
v
ds
, v
qs
d-axis and q-axis components of stator voltage
m

d
, m

q
d-axis and q-axis voltages behind transient
impedance
V
i
DC link output voltage
V
s
Generator terminal voltage
V
ac
AC voltage behind transformer
V

Reference grid voltage


X
s
Stator reactance of induction generator
X

s
Transient reactance of induction generator
X
L
Interconnecting line reactance
a Firing delay angle in switching of rectier
b Pitch angle of rotor blade
k Tip-speed ratio
d Angle at which inverter switch is on from zero
state
q Air density
/ Phase angle between AC voltage behind trans-
former and reference grid voltage
x
m
Wind turbine rotor speed
x
g
Generator rotor speed
x
s
Synchronous speed
K. Ro (&) H. Choi
Department of Electrical Engineering,
Dongguk University, 100-715 Seoul,
Korea
E-mail: ksro@dgu.ac.kr
Tel.: +82-2-22603346
Fax: +82-2-22603346
Electrical Engineering (2005) 88: 4553
DOI 10.1007/s00202-004-0254-2
1 Introduction
Fossil-fuel energy sources, which have contributed
extraordinarily to human civilization and technology
development during the last 40 years, are recognized as
dangerous for our biosphere. Though the increase in
world population certainly requires more electrical en-
ergy, greater usage and the resulting depleted reserves of
fossil fuels may stop or delay future development of
technology. Nuclear power generation, once considered
an unlimited energy source, has proved to be a tech-
nology that is not easily accepted. Renewable energy
sources are of low economy and unrealistic, and thus the
worldwide energy problem has been a dicult issue to
solve. The tasks involved in resolving the energy prob-
lem include (i) more ecient utilization of fossil fuels, (ii)
more secure use of nuclear energy, and (iii) development
of new technologies for utilization of renewable energy
sources including solar, wind, and fuel cell power gen-
eration.
In recent years, a wind turbine system has been
attracting the most attention as an environmentally be-
nign technology since it has become cost-competitive
compared to the conventional forms of power genera-
tion. A wind turbine system is a system that converts the
wind turbines mechanical energy obtained from wind
into electrical energy through a generator and can be
categorized by the types of generators used, power
control methods, constant- or variable-speed operation,
and methods of interconnecting with the grid. Variable-
speed operation of a wind turbine is generally more
advantageous over constant-speed operation since a
variable-speed operation is able to trace the maximum
power of the wind turbine with wind speed changes.
Many research results have recently been reported on
the control of wind turbine generators. A study of the
application of induction generators to wind power gen-
eration was given in [1], where the eect of induction
generator parameters and voltage support requirements
for stability under disturbance conditions were studied.
Steinbuch applied a linear quadratic optimal control
technique to a 310-kW horizontal-axis wind turbine
system with a synchronous generator and DC link [2].
Leithead et al. examined the choice of control objectives
together with the inuence of the controller on the
dynamics of the wind turbine and investigated the
requirement of variable-pitch control to regulate power
generation [3]. Muljadi and Buttereld presented the
operation of variable-speed wind turbines with pitch
control [4]. Variable-speed control has been added to
pitch-angle-controlled design in order to improve the
performance of the system, but the claim that the target
power is proportional to the cube of rotor speed is not
correct when a pitch-angle control is adopted. A fuzzy
logic control approach is presented in [5], where the in-
put variables of the control system are the variations of
the output power and actual speed of the generator.
Based on the generator speed and power output, the
fuzzy logic controller adjusts the torque on the shaft to
drive the turbine at the desired speed. Chedid et al.
presented a model capable of simulating the dynamics of
a wind turbine system and compared four control
techniques based on conventional and intelligent control
schemes [6]. A complete fuzzy-logic-control-based wind
generation system is described in [7], where fuzzy logic
principles are used for eciency optimization and per-
formance enhancement control.
This paper focuses on the controller design and
dynamics modeling for a variable-speed wind turbine
system including an induction generator and an AC/DC/
AC link to a grid. It discusses the maximum power
control algorithm for the wind turbine and presents, in
graphical form, the relationship of wind turbine output,
rotor speed, power coecient, and tip-speed ratio with
wind speed when the wind turbine is operated under the
maximum power control algorithm. A NN pitch con-
troller is introduced to extract maximum power from
wind and a power controller to transfer the maximum
power extracted into the grid. This is achieved by e-
ciently controlling the pitch angle of the wind turbine
blades by the NN controller and ring angles of the in-
verter switches. The simulation results performed on
MATLAB show the variations of the generator torque,
the generator rotor speed, the pitch angle, and real/
reactive power injected into the grid for wind speed
variations. Based on the simulation results, the perfor-
mance of the wind turbine system using the NN pitch
controller would be better than that using a PI control-
ler.1
2 Aerodynamic characteristics
The energy conversion in a wind turbine can be de-
scribed by the nonlinear Eq. 1.
P
m

1
2
qAv
3
C
p
k; b 1
where k is the tip-speed ratio, which is dened by the
following equation:
k
x
m
R
v
2
The power captured by the wind turbine depends
highly on C
p
for a given wind speed, and the relationship
of C
p
with k represents output characteristics of the wind
turbine. Figure 1 illustrates an example of C
p
k char-
acteristic curves for dierent pitch angles, and the curves
were drawn using the following equation [8]:
C
p
0:4654
116
k
i
0:4b 5
_ _
e
20:24
k
i
3
where
1
k
i

1
k 0:08b

0:035
b
3
1
4
46
The gure shows power coecient changes with tip-
speed ratio variations for a specied pitch angle, and
there is one kvalue for which the corresponding C
p
value
is maximized. When the pitch angle increases, the C
p
value is reduced, but the overall trend of the curve is
maintained.
3 Optimal algorithm for wind turbine control
In practice, there exist limits on wind turbine operation
for wind speed variations due to the systems mechanical
or electrical limitations. This gives rise to the rotor speed
control requirement in order to capture maximum
available wind power as well as to protect the rotor and
generator facilities from mechanically or electrically
overloading at high wind speeds. Taking these limita-
tions into account, Fig. 2 shows the speed control
requirement without having the pitch angle adjustments
involved. The gure displays the relationships between
the rotor power, the turbine rotating speed, the power
coecient, and the tip-speed ratio and the wind speed,
where v
ci
is the cut-in wind speed (4 m/s), v
s
is the wind
speed at which the rotor speed reaches its maximum
(11 m/s), v
r
is the rated wind speed (13 m/s), and v
co
is
the cut-out wind speed (24 m/s).
The speed control requirement contains three
regionsmaximum C
p
region, constant speed region,
and constant power region when the speed limit reaches
a point below the power limit; otherwise, the speed
control would require two regions without the constant
speed region.
In the constant maximum C
p
region, the rotor speed
is controlled with the variations of wind speed in order
to operate at the constant maximum C
p
value, which
corresponds to the constant tip-speed ratio. As a con-
sequence, the rotor power increases with the cube of the
wind speed whereas the turbine speed changes linearly
proportional to the wind speed.
When high winds make the turbine speed reach the
speed limit, the wind turbine is controlled to prevent the
turbine speed from varying. The C
p
value is no longer
maximized and thus decreases slowly, and the rotor
power increases at a lower rate than that in the constant
maximum C
p
region.
When the wind speed belongs to the constant power
region, the wind turbine is controlled to keep the rotor
power constant by lowering the rotor speed, as shown in
Fig. 2. In this region, the C
p
value decreases inversely
proportional to the cube of the wind speed. The constant
power requirement can also be achieved by adjusting the
pitch angle of the blades to shed the power captured by
the wind turbine, but this eect is not represented in the
gure.
Figure 3 shows rotor power curves vs. wind turbine
speeds at two dierent wind speeds. In constant-speed
operation, there is only one turbine speed that produces
a maximum rotor power for a given wind speed. For
example, if the turbine is operated at turbine speed w
1
for wind speed v
1
, it generates a maximum available
power. When the wind speed changes to v
2
, the turbine
operates at point d, which is not optimum for the wind
speed v
2
. Thus it is impossible to always generate max-
imum available power with respect to the wind speed
variations under the constant-speed operational mode.
In variable-speed operation, on the other hand, the
turbine speed can be controlled so that the turbine can
generate optimal power at any possible wind speed. In
Fig. 2 Operational modes of a wind turbine considering limitations
Fig. 1 Characteristic curves of a wind turbine for dierent pitch
angle
47
Fig. 3, for the wind speed v
2
the operating point d can be
moved to point c by increasing the turbine speed w
2
.
Therefore, it is possible to generate as much power as
possible by always tracking the maximum C
p
points
whenever the wind speed varies.
4 System conguration and modeling
Figure 4 illustrates the block diagram of the wind tur-
bine system including two control loops of a NN pitch
controller and a power controller. The wind turbines
torque is transferred through a gearbox to an induction
generator, which is rated with a 6-pole, 3.77 kV and
1.5 MW. An IGBT bridge rectier recties the output
power of the induction generator to DC, which is then
inverted to 60 Hz AC by an inverter and fed to a utility
grid through a transformer.
4.1 Drive train and generator model
A typical drive train model, as illustrated in Fig. 5,
consists primarily of a wind turbine, a gearbox, and a
generator. The drive train converts the input wind tor-
que into the torque on the low-speed shaft that is scaled
down through the gearbox to induce a torque on the
high-speed shaft. The dynamics of the rotational system
can be simplied by the following equation [5]:
J
r
n
2
J
g
_ _
dw
g
dt

T
r
n
T
e
_ _

D
r
n
2
D
g
_ _
w
g
5
Recent wind turbines are generally equipped with
induction generators because of low costs and simple
operation. Because of its rugged construction, the
induction generator is inherently a low-maintenance
machine and has higher expected reliability compared to
the synchronous machine.
The modeling of induction generators is expressed
with respect to the reference frames that are the axes
rotating at synchronous speed [9]. For representation in
dynamics study, the stator transients are usually ne-
glected since they are far faster than the rotor ones. Then
the stator equations are derived in the algebraic form as
follows:
v
ds
R
s
i
ds
X
0
s
i
qs
v
0
d
6
v
qs
R
s
i
qs
X
0
s
i
ds
v
0
q
7
And the dynamic equations for the rotor windings are
described as
dv
0
d
dt

1
T
0
0
v
0
d
X
s
X
0
s
_ _
i
qs
_ _

w
s
w
g
_ _
w
s
v
0
q
8
dv
0
q
dt

1
T
0
0
v
0
q
X
s
X
0
s
_ _
i
ds
_ _

w
s
w
g
_ _
w
s
v
0
d
9
4.2 Coupling with grid
As shown in Fig. 3, in order for the induction generator
to be interconnected with a utility grid, it is necessary to
use an ACDCAC conversion scheme since the
generator produces a terminal voltage of variable
Fig. 3 Wind turbine power vs. rotor speed at two wind speeds
Fig. 4 Conguration of a grid-
connected wind turbine system
Fig. 5 Schematic diagram of a drive train model
48
magnitude and variable frequency. A three-phase IGBT
bridge rectier converts the terminal voltage to a DC
voltage V
dc
, which can be expressed as follows:
V
dc

3

2
p
p
V
t
cos a 10
In the paper, the rectier is not controlled, so the
ring angle a is assumed to be zero.
Parallel three-phase bridge inverters are used to
convert the DC voltage into a 60 Hz AC voltage in order
to reduce harmonics involved in the inverter output
voltage. The magnitude of the inverter output voltage V
k
is given by Eq. 11:
V
ll
V
ll

2

2
p
p
cos
p
6
_ _
V
i
cos d 11
Thus angle d can control the magnitude of the in-
verter output voltage.
The inverter output voltage is raised to the grid level
by a pad-mounted transformer. The real power supplied
to the grid can be computed as
P
ac

V
ac
j j V
1
j j sin /
X
L
12
5 Controller models
This section introduces the two control loops of a NN
pitch controller and a power controller, which are shown
in Fig. 3.
5.1 Neural network pitch controller
The purpose of this controller is to capture the wind
energy as much as possible below the rated wind speed
and to maintain the rated power above the rated wind
speed by adjusting the pitch angle of the rotor blades.
According to Fig. 1, the power coecient and the tur-
bines tip-speed ratio are strongly inuenced by the
blade pitch angle and their relationships are nonlinear.
Variable pitch control on wind turbines is introduced
to prevent overload as the wind speed rises above the
rated, which causes the turbine regulated to spill the
excess power in the wind. Adjusting the blade pitches
provides fast modication of the turbine power by
capturing less power from wind at higher wind speed
than the rated speed.
Figure 6 illustrates a model of such a pitch controller
that incorporates a multiplayer perceptron-type neural
network. Highly nonlinear characteristics of Fig. 1
match very well to neural network applications. The
neural network has two inputs, 38 neurons in a hidden
layer, and one output. The number of neurons in the
hidden layer was determined by trial and error to min-
imize the training error. The neural network, using wind
speed v and rotor speed w
m
as inputs, generates the de-
sired pitch angle b.
The back-propagation learning algorithm is used
since the back-propagation algorithm oers an eective
approach to the computation of gradients and hence a
relatively ecient training of multiplayer NNs. The
wind speed values range from 4 m/s to 24 m/s, and the
rotor speeds range from 0.975 rad/s to 1.935 rad/s. The
neural network so designed is able to produce a pitch
angle for any value of wind speed and rotor speed in the
range [v
ci
...v
co
].
When the incoming wind speed exceeds the rated
speed, the turbine power should be controlled to its
rated power by adjusting the turbine blades pitch angle
b. This mechanism can be accomplished by an electro-
mechanical actuator, which can be modeled as follows:
db
dt

1
T
b
b
ref
b 13
5.2 Power controller
The objective of the power controller is to control the
inverter in order to transfer the maximum power ex-
tracted from wind into the grid. Figure 7 illustrates a
model of the power controller using a PI controller for
inverter switching control.
The power controller adjusts the angle / in Eq. 12 so
that the inverter output power follows the generator
output power, which is the power extracted from wind
as much as possible by the NN pitch controller. From
Fig. 7 the dynamics of the power controller can be de-
scribed as follows:
dDc
dt
K
Ib
DP
ref
DP
ac
14
dDV
/
dt

1
T
/
K
/
Dc K
Pb
DP
ref
K
Pb
DP
ac
DV
/
_
15
6 Simulation and discussions
This section veries the performance of the proposed
controllers by looking into the responses of the closed-
Fig. 6 Model for a neural network pitch controller
49
loop wind turbine system to a wind speed variation.
Randomly varying wind speed variation is illustrated in
Fig. 8, where the wind speeds are above the rated speed
(13 m/s) up to about 25 s. The wind speeds will be used
to evaluate the performance of the wind turbine system
using the NN pitch controller over a PI controller.
Characteristic data about the wind turbine system used
in this work are given in the Appendix.
For continuously varying wind speeds, the power
output of the wind turbine generator will change
accordingly. Variations of the generator torque, gener-
ator rotor speed, generator terminal voltage, pitch angle,
power coecient, and real and reactive power injected
into the grid are illustrated from Figs. 9, 10, 11, 12, 13,
14, and 15, respectively. Those gures contain two
curves; the thick one is for the NN pitch controller and
the thin one is for a PI controller for maximum power
extraction from wind. According to those gures, the
above variables are kept around the rated values at wind
speeds above the rated speed due to the pitch controller,
which makes the wind turbine blades bypass the excess
energy in the wind. On the other hand, at wind speeds
below the rated, those variables follow obviously the
trend of the wind speeds.
Figure 10 shows a relatively smooth variation of
rotor speed since the large inertia of the mechanical
system prevents the wind turbine system from following
the high wind speed uctuations. Figure 11 shows the
Fig. 7 Model for a power
controller for inverter switching
control
Fig. 8 Wind speed variation
Fig. 9 Variation of generator
torque
50
variation of the generator terminal voltage, which is not
maintained at constant value during the wind speeds less
than the rated speed, owing to the adoption of an
induction generator. Figure 12 illustrates that the wind
turbine operates in the lower power coecient values at
higher wind speeds than the rated speed in order to
bypass the excess energy in the wind. This operation is
possible by regulating the blade pitch angle at higher
wind speeds as shown in Fig. 13. At lower wind speeds
the pitch controller is not necessary to operate and only
the power controller operates to transfer the varying
power to the grid as much as possible. Therefore, the
output power injected to the grid is kept nearly constant
during higher wind speeds and follows the trend of the
wind speeds at the other regions, which is shown in
Fig. 14.
The simulation results show that the NN pitch
controller and the power controller work well in the
whole region of wind speed and the NN pitch
controller exhibits a better performance than a PI
Fig. 10 Variation of generator
rotor speed
Fig. 11 Variation of generator
terminal voltage
Fig. 12 Variation of power
coecient
51
controller for maximum power extraction in wind
turbines. Thus, the proposed controllers achieve the
following two goals:
(a) During low wind speeds, the wind turbine gen-
erator is operated at the constant power coef-
cient.
(b) At higher wind speeds, the NN pitch controller
operates the wind turbine system to produce the
rated constant power.
7 Conclusion
Since wind speed varies over a large range, variable-
speed wind power generation is useful for maximizing
the power extraction of a wind turbine. This paper
presents a modeling and simulation of a variable-speed
wind turbine system and two controllers. A neural net-
work is adopted to control the pitch angle of rotor
blades since the characteristics of the power coecient
Fig. 15 Variation of reactive
power injected into the grid
Fig. 13 Variation of pitch angle
Fig. 14 Variation of real power
injected into the grid
52
vs. tip-speed ratio with respect to pitch-angle variations
are highly nonlinear. A power controller is to transfer
the maximum power generated to the utility grid.
Examining the operational characteristics of the wind
turbine system, the advantages of the variable-speed
mode of operation were highlighted. Based on the sim-
ulation results, we came to the following conclusions:
(a) In the low wind speed region, maximum power
coefcient operating mode is adapted to obtain the
optimal power as long as possible.
(b) In the higher wind speed region, the pitch angle is
controlled to bypass the excess energy in the wind
and the output power is kept nearly constant.
(c) The NN pitch controller exhibits better perfor-
mance than a PI controller in the maximum power
extraction from wind.
Appendix
Characteristic data of wind turbine system
Wind turbine rating 1.5 [MW]
Maximum power coefcient 0.41
Radius of rotor 32 [m]
Rated wind speed 13 [m/s]
Cut-in wind speed 4 [m/s]
Cut-out wind speed 24 [m/s]
Generator pole number 6
Air density 1.035 [kg/m
3
]
Acknowledgements This work has been supported by KESRI
(04506), which is funded by MOCIE (Ministry of Commerce,
industry and energy).
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