Warping model predictive control for application in control of a real airborne wind energy system

Abstract

Fast online generation of feasible and optimal reference trajectories is crucial in tracking model predictive control, especially for stability and optimality in presence of a time varying parameter. In this paper, in order to circumvent the operational efforts of handling a discrete set of precomputed trajectories and switching between them, time warping of a single trajectory is proposed as an alternative concept. In particular, the conceptual ideas of warping theory are presented and illustrated based on the example of a tethered kite system for airborne wind energy. In detail, for warpable systems, feasibility and optimality of trajectories are discussed. Subsequently, the full algorithm of a nonlinear model predictive control implementation based on warping a single precomputed reference is presented. Finally, the warping algorithm is applied to the airborne wind energy system. Simulation results in presence of real world perturbations are evaluated and compared.