Indirect estimation of the Yaw-Angle misalignment in a horizontal axis wind turbine

Abstract

This paper deals with the problem of the yaw angle misalignment in a wind turbine of horizontal axis type and proposes a novel technique for indirectly estimating it. Thus, accurate yaw control can be attained because it is not affected by the inaccuracies that are caused by the vortex flow downstream of the blades which highly influences the wind direction measurement obtained by sensors located at the back end of the nacelle. Furthermore, the proposed technique is cost-effective because, it is not needed the more accurate but highly expensive remote sensing devices. Although it is more suitable for large wind turbines because higher power increase can be accomplished by an accurate yaw control, due to the low cost it can be used in small wind turbines. Thus, it can be applied to any type of power range wind turbines and any type of electrical generators. The practicality and effectiveness of the suggested technique have been verified through simulation analysis conducted by Matlab/Simulink and experimentally on a low power scaling real wind turbine. Several simulation and experimental results have been included in the paper in order to demonstrate the above achievements of the proposed yaw control technique.