MPC framework for constrained wind turbine individual pitch control

Abstract The reduction of structural loads is becoming an important objective for the wind turbine control system due to the ever‐increasing specifications/demands on wind turbine rated power and related growth of turbine dimensions. Among various control algorithms that have been researched in recent years, the individual pitch control has demonstrated its effectiveness in wind turbine load reduction. Since the individual pitch control, like other load reduction algorithms, requires higher levels of actuator activity, one must take actuator constraints into account when designing the controller. This paper presents a method for the inclusion of such constraints into a predictive wind turbine controller. It is shown that the direct inclusion of constraints would result in a control problem that is nonconvex and difficult to solve. Therefore, a modification of the constraints is proposed that ensures the convexity of the control problem. Simulation results show that the developed predictive control algorithm achieves individual pitch control objectives while satisfying all imposed constraints.