Collaborative Research: Optimized Harvesting of Hydrokinetic Power by Ocean Current Turbine Farms Using Integrated Control

智力优势：现代世界需要多样化的能源组合，在过去十年中，大量投资致力于利用海洋可再生能源，这些能源在理论上具有远远超过世界目前发电需求的潜力。在这些未开发的资源中，大多数大陆东部海岸线附近的开阔洋流或主要是单向的大规模环流位于更深的海洋区域(250米)，但在海面附近流动。各种商业利益集团现在提议安装涡轮机，将这些巨大的动能储备转化为可用电力，但到目前为止，还没有在相关环境中建造或测试大规模商业生产原型。意识到这些资源的价值并促进其商业发展，美国能源部指定了三个国家中心来研究解决方案，以帮助加快海洋可再生能源向电网提供基本负荷电力的速度，并为不断发展的技术提供测试能力。位于佛罗里达大西洋大学(FAU)的东南国家可再生能源中心(SNMREC)是一个这样的中心，专门负责实现开放洋流技术的商业化。SNMREC、新奥尔良大学(UNO)海军建筑和海洋工程学院(UNO)、弗吉尼亚理工学院能源收集材料与系统中心(CEHMS)和州立大学(VT)建立了合作伙伴关系，以利用每个机构的优势来实现帮助新兴洋流能源行业克服特定技术障碍，促进并最终实现商业化的目标。未来的洋流涡轮机(OCT)农场将战略性地位于洋流能量最密集的部分(靠近海面，但停泊在深海区域)，以最大限度地提高发电能力。为了实现定位稳定性和最大限度地提高发电功率，OCT预计将有效地避开附近涡轮机的尾迹和破坏性的环境力，但寻求高能量密度和稳定的流动。因此，这些水轮机必须实现自主和集成的机电和位置控制。遗憾的是，由于早期商业涡轮机的设计工作仍然集中在能量转换演示、小规模验证和硬件对运行环境的适应性上，因此还没有做出重大努力来开发OCT农场的联合运动控制，特别是在考虑发电的情况下。因此，这项工作提出开发自主的机电和飞行控制系统，以最大限度地利用单个OCT单元的发电量，然后通过基于物理的数值模拟来测试有效性。控制优化将涉及利用直升机飞行控制和现代多变量约束控制技术的主动OCT旋翼桨距角控制。然后，这些解决方案将被外推到OCT农场，这将需要新颖的高级协作控制方法，并将通过基于物理的数值模拟进行验证。BROADER影响：要使OCT概念变得商业可行，需要运动控制和发电优化系统。该项目将达到这一要求，将促进水轮机建模科学，并将促进现代控制设计。这一努力将直接实现洋流能量转换的商业化，并将把重点放在一种新的控制和优化应用上，这将激励这项工作以外的重大创新。该项目的主要成果将直接与SNMREC、UNO和VT积极推广和教育发展计划相结合，这些计划定期通过演讲、研讨会、网络和会议与公众分享研究成果。文化不同学区的K-12 STEM强化课程和训练有素的教师将进一步受益于这项工作。大学合作伙伴还开发了合作实验室工具，计划直接纳入本科课程。联合国海洋研究所、VT和FAU促进传播适用的研究数据，帮助培养一支未来的专业劳动力队伍，以建立一个强大的海洋可再生能源部门。

INTELLECTUAL MERIT: The modern world needs a diverse energy portfolio and during the past decade, significant investments have been committed to harnessing marine renewable energy sources which have a theoretical potential to far exceed the world's present power generation needs. Of these untapped resources, open ocean currents, or predominantly unidirectional large scale circulations located near eastern coastlines of most continents, are located in deeper ocean areas (250m), but flow near the sea surface. Various commercial interests now propose to install turbines to convert these vast kinetic energy reserves into usable electrical power, but thus far no large-scale commercial production prototypes have been constructed or tested in relevant environments. Perceiving the value these resources and to nurture their commercial development, the U.S. Department of Energy has designated three national centers to investigate solutions that help accelerate the pace at which marine renewables deliver base-load power to the grid and to provide testing capacities for evolving technologies. One such center, the Southeast National Renewable Energy Center (SNMREC) at Florida Atlantic University (FAU), is specifically tasked with enabling commercialization of open ocean current technologies.A partnership between the SNMREC, the School of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering at the University of New Orleans (UNO) and the Center for Energy Harvesting Materials andSystems (CEHMS) at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (VT) has been organized to leverage the strengths of each institution to achieve the goal of helping the emerging ocean current energy industry overcome specific technical hurdles to promote and enable eventual commercialization. Future farms of ocean current turbines (OCTs) will be strategically located in the most energy dense portions of ocean current flows (near the surface, but anchored in deep ocean areas) to maximize power generation. To achieve positioning stability and to maximize generated power, OCTs are expected to efficiently avoid the wakes of nearby turbines and destructive environmental forces, but seek high energy density and consistent flow. Thus, these turbines must achieve autonomous and integrated electromechanical and position control. Unfortunately, because early commercial turbine design efforts are still focused on energy conversion demonstrations, small-scale validation, and hardware suitability for the operational environment, no significant effort has yet been applied to develop joint motion control for farms of OCTs, especially when coupled with power generation considerations. This effort therefore proposes to develop autonomous electromechanical and flight control systems to maximize the generated electricity by a single OCT unit, and then test effectiveness with a physics-based numerical simulation.Control optimization will involve active OCT rotor blade pitch angle control by leveraging helicopter flight control and modern multivariable constrained control techniques. The solutions will then be extrapolated to a farm of OCTs, which will require novel advanced collaborative control methodologies and will be validated with physics-based numerical simulation.BROADER IMPACTS: For OCT concepts to become commercially viable, motion control and power generation optimization systems are needed. This project will achieve this requirement, will advance turbine modeling science, and will advance modern control design. This effort will directly enable the commercialization of ocean current energy conversion and will bring focus upon a new control and optimization application which will inspire significant innovation beyond this work. Major findings from this project will be directly integrated with the SNMREC, UNO and VT active outreach and education development programs which regularly share research outcomes with the public through presentations, workshops, the web, and conferences. A K-12 STEM enhancement curriculum and trained teachers in culturally diverse school districts will further benefit from this work. The university partners have also developed cooperative laboratory tools planned for direct incorporation into undergraduate curriculum. UNO, VT and FAU promote dissemination of applicable research data, helping prepare a future professional workforce toward a robust marine renewable energy sector.