Computational Aspects of Simulating a Wind Turbine Blade Deflection Sensing System

Recently introduced wind turbine blade deflection sensing system using ultrawideband technology is described. Challenges of simulating microwave propagation along the blade using the finite-difference time-domain method are outlined. Two straightforward techniques that have been used to speed up the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulation are presented: load balancing of parallel processes and the moving frame technique. In addition, a simple method to reduce the numerical dispersion error of the FDTD method is presented.