Aryan Rana

Tuesday, February 25, 2025, 9:00 - 10:00

Room 02-012, Georges-Köhler Allee 102, Freiburg 79110, Germany

Abstract:

Airborne Wind Energy (AWE) systems harness strong, consistent high-altitude winds, for efficient energy capture. One approach to achieving this is through rigid wing rotary kite based AWE systems, where multiple rigid wings rotate around a central axis, transmitting aerodynamic forces via tethers to a ground-based generator for efficient wind energy conversion. To accurately control position andaltitude of such systems in sky, cyclic pitch control is employed, which requires direct actuation of rotor wings. However, this method demands significant energy, reducing overall system efficiency. To address this, a servo-flap actuation system is proposed for the wings insipired by Kaman K-MAX helicopter. This thesis develops a dynamic model of this wing-flap assembly. To estimate the model parameters, experimental data is collected using a single wing-flap assembly on a test bench.A system identification approach is applied using parameter and state trajectory estimation and a nonlinear least squares (NLS) optimization problem is solved to identify key system parameters. It is shown that the identified model effectively captures the pitch dynamics of the wing-flap system, with strong agreement between simulations and validation data after parameter optimization. However some inconsistencies persist, possibly due to unmodeled vibratory dynamics, structural flexibility or aerodynamic effects.